The state has missed a June 1 legislative deadline to present architectural plans on a new office building that is at the heart of reconstruction of the Waterbury state office complex.
The department of buildings and general services was required to present “a modified design proposal” on the building to house state workers before a special panel of lawmakers “on or before June 1,” according to the massive annual capital spending bill passed by the Legislature in April.
However, top lawmakers involved in oversight of rebuilding the office complex, flooded last August by Tropical Storm Irene, said they approved and understand the reasons the building department missed the deadline.They cited the massive size of the project and uncertainty about how many state workers will be housed in the building.
“They, in essence, made a report saying they couldn’t make it,” said Sen. Robert Hartwell, D-Bennington, who chairs the Senate Institutions committee. “We often do put dates in law when reports are due, and sometimes they get complied with and sometimes they don’t.”
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Rep. Alice Emmons, chairwoman of the House Institutions Committee, which along with Hartwell’s panel, oversees the state’s vast complex of buildings and any new construction, said she understood the June 1 deadline was ambitious.
“We knew when we left (for adjournment) that that was not going to be possible,” said Emmons. “We weren’t worried about it. We wanted to allow them the time to do the work that really needs to be done.”
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Further delays possible
The report is now scheduled to be presented at a meeting July 20 to the Joint Fiscal Committee of the Legislature as well as members of the House and Senate Institutions committees.
But Buildings and General Services Commissioner Michael Obuchowski said Tuesday it’s not certain the architects hired by the state, Freeman French Freeman of Burlington, will be able to have a full design proposal even by July 20.
He said the hangup is that Freeman French Freeman and state officials are still working to figure out just how many state employees will be in the new building and how the offices should be designed to house them.
“This is very, very detailed work,” said Obuchowski, adding that because the restoration cost of the state complex is so high, “you want to do it correctly.”
“This is very, very detailed work,” said Obuchowski, adding that because the restoration cost of the state complex is so high, “you want to do it correctly.”
He also said that Legislature had “set out a very aggressive request list” for his department and it was simply not able to meet the deadline in the time required. The state is pushing hard to reconstruct the historic Waterbury complex, which housed some 1,500 state employees and the Vermont State Hospital before flooding from Irene damaged many of the 50 buildings in the complex last August.
A landmark project
The project has been called the largest construction undertaking in the state’s history and is being speeded along both because state employees are now scattered in leased space, at very high cost and in an inefficient manner, and because the loss of state workers has had a serious economic impact on the town of Waterbury, which was also hard hit by flooding.
The modified state office building proposal sought by the Legislature is a down-sized version of a $34 million, 135,830-square-foot structure that was initially planned to house around 1,200 state workers.
The state was originally given four options on reuse of the 100-acre state office complex in a feasibility study produced by Freeman French Freeman. The administration and the Legislature settled on one called “Option B,” which called for restoration of the historic main spine of the complex, extensive demolition of ancillary and damaged structures, moving the power plant out of the flood zone and building a new state office building at the complex.
But a decision was made last winter to move around 350 Agency of Natural Resources staff to leased space at National Life in Montpelier instead of back to offices in Waterbury. The state already has an extensive workforce at the National Life site.
As a result, the Legislature called for a modified, smaller redesigned state office that would house around 1,000 employees from the Agency of Human Services. Lawmakers also called for the modified proposal to look at how much Vermont construction material such as granite and marble is used, the building’s energy efficiency and other factors. All these, together with downsizing the building, were stressed as ways to lower the original design’s $34 million cost.
The overall costs of the reconstruction, addition and demolitions and other work at the complex was estimated at well over $100 million in the feasibility study. Adding to the uncertainties hanging over the project is the fact the state is still awaiting details on how much money it can expect from both insurance coverage and FEMA for the flooding damage.
Secretary of Administration Jeb Spaulding last week cited the extreme complexity of the rebuilding project at Waterbury as the key factor in delaying an answer from FEMA on how much of the cost it will reimburse the state for.
Hartwell said it is no easy thing to decide a design for the new office building, where the state wants to create a high-tech 21st century, flexible, open-floor plan for the agency that allows for possible future growth and trends such as telecommuting and office-sharing.
“That process simply takes longer than anyone thought, “ Hartwell said. But Hartwell said the state needs to get some direction a month from now if it is to meet its goals of repopulating the office complex in a couple of years. The Legislature appropriated $18 million this session as the first installment of funding to rebuild the complex and to build a new 25-bed state hospital in Berlin, he said.
“I do think July 20th is a very significant date,” he said.
