Springdale council to consider votes to spend $1.5 million more for city hall project

SPRINGDALE -- The City Council working as a Committee of the Whole on Tuesday passed on for vote an additional $1.5 million for construction of its new municipal campus.

The council will vote on two measures during its meeting Feb. 9.

The council supported the addition of a community room to the south side of the building for $503,089. They also accepted change orders made during construction to support technology needed by the Police Department but balked at paying additional costs to the architect and contractor, who cited delays because of weather and the covid-19 pandemic.

The money will come from the general fund on the 2022 budget, said Mayor Doug Sprouse.

Springdale voters in 2018 approved a $200 million bond project including $42 million for a new city administration building. The campus is being built in two stages. The north side of the building, currently under construction as Phase 1, includes the Police Department and district court and offices. Phase 2 will include offices for staff of city departments and a new council chambers on the south end.

Contingencies for delays were included in the contracts for both the architect and the contractor, but the project has exceeded the time allowed for delays.

The original contract listed 780 days for construction, but the contractors asked for 287 more.

"That's a nine-month delay," said council member Brian Powell.

Roy Decker of Duvall Decker Architects asked for $317,214 in an extension of the architect's contract. He said the architecture firm stays on the project through construction in case problems or changes arise need redesign and engineering.

Sprouse said the architect's contracted costs were paid by a design grant from the Walton Family Foundation.

The contract with Milestone Construction also will increase, not including the cost of the community room.

The construction budget still includes $552,581. Additional money of $222,463 will come from the general fund in the 2022 budget, as will the community room, Sprouse said.

Colby Fulfer, assistant to the mayor, told the council the undesignated money for such projects sits at $12.2 million.

"That's what that money is there for, to return services to the citizens," Sprouse said.

The pandemic caused delays as various subcontractors would have to quarantine entire crews when one worker tested positive, said Wyman Morgan, the city's director of administration and finance.

Most days, about 100 people worked on the construction of the building, but some days, only 25 were there, Morgan said.

"We also had an unusual disruption of the supply chain," Roy Decker of Duvall Decker architects told the council.

He said the factory producing the concrete panels making up the outer walls was closed for a time during the pandemic. The panels were six months late, he said.

"But construction can't finish on the interior without the exterior being up," Decker continued.

Greg Ferus of Milestone Construction said the project also faced 80 days of inclement weather, especially at the beginning of the project as dirt work for the site began.

The city also requested several changes in the building design and engineering as construction moved forward, Decker said.

"When is the bleeding going to stop? We're not even to Phase 2," asked Randall Harriman.

Decker said he foresees no other delays or cost overages. "We're 65% complete, and this end of the building will be easier. This end's an office building."