Council Approves Additional Contingency Funds for New Dpw Building

By Adam Swift

The City Council approved a $600,000 transfer from free cash to complete funding of a new DPW facility at last week’s meeting.

The final piece of funding should clear the way for the new building to be ready for operation in September, said Richard Viscay, the city’s finance director.

“While we were pretty lean with these contingencies, we did have some soil issues that created a bit of a problem,” said Viscay. “We do believe this $600,000 will allow us to complete this project and be open for business in September.”

The Revere DPW project started construction in June of 2022, having executed a contract with GVW, Inc. for $20,987,225, according to John Cutler, the city’s project manager from Hill International. The $25 million total project budget carried a construction contingency of $754,375, roughly 3.6 percent of the construction cost, which Cutler stated is well below the industry standard.

In a letter dated June 20, Cutler stated that five change orders have been signed and executed amounting to $671,347, leaving the project with just over $83,000 left in the construction contingency. The total construction expenditure as of that date, including change order payments, amounted to $15,523,539, with $6,162,551 left to be spent on the base construction cost.

Cutler stated that the remaining contingency is approximately 1.3 percent of the remaining work yet to be billed. He added that while change orders to date have been minimal relative to the construction contract, there have been three major factors that have contributed to the bulk of the contingency usage to date and forecasted risk.

The first major unforeseen cost was the removal of asbestos vinyl tile that was discovered on site sandwiched between the four-inch and six-inch concreted pad of the existing DPW during demolition.

The second significant unforeseen cost was the removal and disposal of two underground storage tanks. Both tanks had retained groundwater in excess of 7,000 gallons.

“The final, and most costly added expenditure to the project came from a culmination of site conditions surrounding the removal of soil,” stated Cutler.

There were 38 obstructions requiring removal to install the Geopiers. This cost the city over $40,000 for the removal alone, and the compounding cost is ongoing.

“In addition to this, over 2,000 tons of highly contaminated soil was located in the northwest perimeter of the site, requiring disposal at the fixed rate of $140/ton,” Cutler stated.

The council and city boards approved the building of the new DPW building in late 2021. The new 40,000-square-foot building on Charger Road is about twice the size of the old DPW building, with more room for equipment storage and an improved stormwater management system.