By Adam Swift
The Revere High School Building Committee held a special meeting earlier this month to approve paying two invoices for the $500-million project at Wonderland.
The next regular meeting of the committee is scheduled for Wednesday, April 30.
“They are small contracts that are executed directly with the city, both of them have budgets and both of them were anticipated,” said Brian Dakin of Leftfield, the owner’s project manager for the project of the two invoice items.
The first was $50,150 for a Passive House Project registration fee, while the second was $30,000 to National Grid for them to conduct a power study for the site.
“This is basically one of the main programs out there outside of LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) that has a method of quantifying sustainable elements of the project,” said Dakin of the Passive House Project. “It ultimately involves them reviewing documents and sending people on site to verify that systems got implemented the right way. Ultimately, it is one of the accreditation services that these projects go after.”
The registration fee of just over $50,000 covers all the work that will be performed, and Dakin said the fee is based largely on the square footage of the building.
Dakin said this certification is different from LEED in that the company will send people out to walk the site and do testing on site once the systems are installed and the building envelope is closed.
“It is another layer of testing at the end of the job to make sure all these mechanical systems got implemented in the way that they are designed,” said Dakin. “What you are paying for is an extra independent layer of verification that the systems are performing to the energy code.”
Dakin also noted that the $30,000 paid to National Grid for the engineering power study will ultimately go toward the total back charge from the utility company for hooking power up to the new building.
“Due to the size of the building and the fact that there hasn’t been any significant electrical service done at the Wonderland site for at least a decade or more, the first step here is for National Grid to do an engineering power study,” said Dakin. “Whenever they are looking for a power study, they look for a deposit up front. This is effectively a deposit to what will become the final back charge, which will be significantly more than $30,000.”
However, Dakin said once the deposit is paid out, there will still be $245,000 remaining in the utility company line item for the high school project.
“But really, the only thing that would go against the remaining $245,000 I know about right now is electrical service,” said Dakin. “When we get the full bill, we will already be $30,000 into what the project owes National Grid.”
