WESTFIELD – The city notified Forish Construction that their bid for the senior center construction is the apparent low bid for construction of the two-story, 20,000-square foot facility on Noble Street.
The commute for Forish workers will be short, less than a half mile between the construction site and the contractor’s facility on Mainline Drive.
The city received 10 bids for the senior center construction project which included a base bid and “alternatives” included as add-ons to the base bid. The contract was structured with the lower cost options to ensure that the construction cost would fall below $7 million. The alternatives replace less expensive materials with better material, such as replacing concrete curbing with granite.
Forish Construction submitted the low bid of $6,184,541 and a combined price of $6,324,625 for the construction and six alternates.
The other bids were submitted by Marois Construction Inc. of South Hadley ($6,427,000); Sage Engineering Associates of Westfield ($6,672,000); Eastern General Contractors of Springfield ($6,864,000); Enfield Builders Inc., of Enfield, Connecticut ($6,468,000); RAC Builders Inc. of Agawam ($7,800,000); D.A. Sullivan & Sons Inc., of Northampton ($6,298,000); Orlando Annulli & Sons of Manchester, Connecticut ($6,715,322; and WJ Mountford Company of South Windsor, Connecticut ($6,825,000).
Eric Forish said that the Purchasing Director, Tammy Tefft “has given us notice that the firm will be awarded the project, but that they can’t cut a contract until the City Council has approved the bond.”
Mayor Daniel M. Knapik submitted an appropriation request for a $7.5 million bond to the City Council last Thursday and that appropriation is in the Finance Committee which plans to meet on Thursday, May 29, to discuss the bond appropriation and several other financial issues.
The $7.5 million bond before the City Council contains an 8 percent contingency, about $500,000, money which would not be used except to address unanticipated problems during construction.
Typically the actual construction project is financed through short term borrowing called bond anticipation notes (BANs). The bond is actually sold following competition of the project when the exact dollar amount is known and is often less that the dollar number authorized by the City Council
“We’re proud to be participating in this project,” Forish said. “From my perspective it’s a great project for all of the senior citizens of Westfield. It’s been a long patient wait for them.”
“This will be a facility to serve the community for years to come,” Forish said, “and several hundred construction workers will be involved from all of the different trades.”
