Firm building Meredith police station pegged for Gilford project

In the wake of this week's decision to dump Baybutt Construction of Keene as construction manager for the police station project, the Board of Selectmen yesterday accepted the recommendation of the Facility Planning Committee (FPC) to retain Bauen Corporation of Meredith in their place. For the moment the juggling of construction managers has left the FPC without a guaranteed maximum cost for the project as the clock on the budget process for 2006 is fast winding down.

The selectmen accepted the recommendation of the FPC to appoint Baybutt Construction in November and instructed Town Administrator Evans Juris to negotiate the contract. Meanwhile, differences arose over the cost of the project between Banwell Architects, the firm that designed the facility, and Baybutt Construction, the company hired to build it.

Rod Parsons of Baybutt Construction, who joined the FPC in November, told the committee last week that estimates of between $3 million and $3.5 million reached last year in consultation with Banwell Architects were low and construction costs had risen 10 percent since. He projected that the cost of the 15,000-square-foot facility at $4.6 million and said that the building would have to be shrunk by a nearly third to lower the cost below $4 million.

Reducing the size of the building by almost 5,000 square feet would require significant changes to the design of some of its most important features, including the booking hall, evidence room and office space. Currently the police department operates from 7,000 square feet in a wing of the Town Hall, in space that it deems not only insufficient but also poorly designed.

While the FPC pondered its dilemma, the Meredith Board of Selectmen decided to recommend that Town Meeting authorize borrowing between $1.6 million and $1.8 million to fund most of the $2.4 million cost of a new 12,520 square-foot police station. Like the facility planned in Gilford, the station in Meredith is designed as a two-story wood-frame building erected on a slab. The second floor will include 1,200 square feet of unfinished space for future expansion of the department. Bauen Corporation, which served as construction manager for the Meredith Community Center, has also been chosen for the Meredith Police Station.

Aware that Meredith planned to undertake a similar project for less than $200 a square foot, the FPC chose to abandon its relationship with Baybutt Construction rather than reduce and redesign its facility. In a memorandum read when the selectmen met on Wednesday, Juris referred to the project planned in Meredith and concluded that "even though construction methods may differ between the Meredith proposal and ours, I do not believe that a price tag of $4.5 million can be justified to our taxpayers."

On Thursday, the day after relations with Baybutt Construction were severed, the FPC met with representatives of Bonette, Page & Stone (BPS) of Laconia and Bauen Corporation, the two other firms that responded to the town's request for proposals. Chairman of the Board of Selectmen Alice Boucher, who participated in the meeting, said that the choice of Bauen Corporation was "a very difficult decision," adding that "we deliberated for an hour."

In recommending Bauen Corporation to the selectmen yesterday, Larry Routhier, who chairs the FPC, told the board that he believed the project "could be done with substantial savings." He declined to explain why Bauen Corporation was chosen over BPS, but said that the difference in cost between the two was "small" and not decisive. However, when Selectmen Kinney O'Rourke noted that BPS was a local firm whose president lived in Gilford and asked if negotiations could be reopened, Routhier replied that BPS refused to renegotiate their proposal.

Juris said yesterday that he was reviewing the contract with Bauen Corporation. At the same time, he said that representatives of Banwell Architects and Bauen Corporation were meeting to arrive at a guaranteed maximum cost to be presented to the selectmen when they meet on December 28 in anticipation of preparing a warrant article for the police station that would be submitted to the Budget Committee by January 5.