Dan Pallotta, president of P-3 Incorporated, leads, left-right, Robert Todisco, assistant project manager, Westfield Mayor Daniel Knapik, Tammy Tafft, Westfield purchasing director, Jim Laverty, Westfield Vocational-Technical High School director, and Jeff Daley, city advancement officer, during a tour of the Westfield Vocational-Technical High School in 2012. (File photo by chief photographer Frederick Gore)
WESTFIELD – The city has hired a new company to serve as the project manager for construction of the senior center, selecting P-3 to serve as the city’s owners’ project manager (OPM) for the final construction phase because of the firm’s experience with senior center construction projects.
P-3 also has performed the OPM function for several projects involving the senior center architect, Dietz & Company Architects of Springfield, and with Forish Construction of Mainline Drive, the general contractor.
P-3 is well known to city government having recently been involved on four city projects, serving as the project manager for the Energy Management System (EMS) project at city schools and municipal buildings, including City Hall.
P-3 has partnered with Dietz for the Westfield Vocational Technical High School energy efficiency work completed last year.
City Purchaser Tammy Tefft introduced P-3 President Dan Pallotta and Michael DelVecchio who will serve as the construction project manager at the Senior Center Building Committee meeting yesterday afternoon.
Tefft said Diversified Project Management of East Hartford, Conn., the city’s original Owners Project Manager, had completed the first two phases of the senior center project. Phase one was the site evaluation and selection, while phase 2 was the design of the 20,000-square-foot, two-story building that will house the Council on Aging staff, the senior center and the city’s Veterans Affairs Department staff.
“We decided to go a different route after Diversified completed the first two phases,” Tefft said. The city released the OPM contract and received 8 submissions. Two companies were then interviewed, then P-3 was selected to serve as the OPM.
“We wanted an OPM with senior center construction experience,” COA Executive Director Tina Gorman said, “and having worked on projects with Dietz and Forish was an additional benefit.”
P-3 is currently working with Forish Construction at the charter school project in Holyoke and was the OPM for the Rockland senior center construction project, which was recently completed.
P-3 has also been involved in construction of senior centers in Kingston and Erving, where DelVecchio, prior to joining P-3, was the general contractor.
“There is a special touch needed to do these (senior center) buildings,” Pallotta said. “Our philosophy is to get everyone together as a team to work to solve problems, get it done.
”We’re very excited to be here. We’re proud of the projects that we’ve done in Westfield,” Pallotta said. “You will have a blast seeing this building rise up from the ground.”
“It’s going to be fun,” he said.
