Unresolved Issues About High School Renovation

It appears there is a “misunderstanding” between the town’s focal players in the high school renovation and the architecture firm charged with designing the project.

At a board of finance meeting Wednesday, board of finance member and chairman of the school building committee Alan Wilensky shared his concerns about the Waterford High School renovation.

Several “blatantly obvious” items were overlooked on the plans, and others were “value-engineered” much below the town’s standards, Wilensky said. JCJ Architecture, which is designing the renovation, should have drawn the plans to a higher standard, and should have caught obvious mistakes that need to be fixed, Wilensky said.

“If we continued on this line, I would be horrifically embarrassed if I were to present this $70 million building to the town,” he said.

Some examples given were that old, ugly lockers in the locker room were originally set to be replaced but haven't been, and the mechanics of the pool needed to be fixed but weren’t, Wilensky said. All these changes were in the original plans, Finance Director Rudie Beers said.

JCJ Architecture possibly “valued-engineered” these plans because it thought “the town couldn’t afford them,” Wilensky said. Beers said if that is true, JCJ Architecture would be held responsible.
“We are covered here, absolutely,” Beers said.

School Buildings and Grounds Director Jay Miner echoed Beers' and Wilensky’s thoughts in a Thursday interview.

“They value-engineered the project without us knowing we were value-engineering,” Miner said. “We aren’t getting things done that should be done.”

JCJ Architecture should have found the obvious mistakes that needed to be fixed as well, Miner said.

 “If you spend $3 million on an architect for a building, you have some expectations,” Miner said.

JCJ’s Take

The plans of the building are made as part of a “collaborative” effort, and the firm would never make decisions unilaterally, Greg Smolley of JCJ Architecture said.

“It is not our school when it is all done,” Smolley said. “We don’t do value-engineer without the town’s approval.”

These issues are all part of the “building process,” and conversations like this happen all the time, Smolley said. It will be worked out, he said.

Smolley said it was “unfortunate” that Wilensky would say this at a public meeting when JCJ Architecture wasn’t present.

This is the second time in two months that Wilensky brought forth a matter in a public setting that an official felt would have been handled better.

Superintendent Jerome Belair and the board of education were upset in April when Wilensky brought forth a complaint to a public board of education meeting, when that should have been handled internally first, Belair said.

What Now

Both sides agree that the town wants work done that isn’t currently in the plans. This will take either a change order or for the work to be bid out, Miner said.

The process is to always ask for a change order proposal first, because the contractor is already there working, Smolley said. If the number is too high, then you put the project out to bid, Smolley said.

The town should still come under its original budget for the project, Miner said. After the original bidding, the town was $5 million under, so even with these extras it should still be below the budgeted total of $68 million, Miner said.

To fix the problem, the architect and the town need to get together to talk through this, Belair said. That should happen next week, he said.

“What we need to do first is get all the players at the table,” Belair said. “If we need to make any changes, we need to go through the process.”