KMXT 100.1 FM Public Radio in Kodiak, Alaska
The especially sunny summer this year did more than just improve the moods of many people, it also helped keep Kodiak’s many construction projects on or ahead of schedule. Matt Gandel is the project manager and inspector for the Kodiak Island Borough and said construction crews for the new long term care facility have been working six days a week to keep it on track for finishing before the New Year.
“Right now they have the whole building is framed and up, the roof is done, all the walls inside are up and they’re currently working on the interior plumbing and electrical work and mechanical work and once they get that completed they’ll start covering up walls with drywall.”
He said the goal of finishing before the New Year is to allow Providence Kodiak Island Medical Center, which will lease the facility, enough time to move in so it can qualify for a larger Medicaid reimbursement per patient. Gandel said he definitely believes they will complete the project in time for that March 2014 deadline, mainly because of the contractor for the project, Davis Construction of Anchorage.
“From the start they’ve been pursuing an aggressive schedule to get this done ahead of time and so far they’re doing a great job so we have every expectation we’ll be done before the end of the year, with the project.”
Gandel said this project is using a different delivery method than the borough typically uses. He said public entities generally use a design, bid, build process, but this one is a guaranteed maximum price delivery method.
“Basically the contractor was selected on the basis of qualifications, not necessarily price. And then once that contractor was selected we negotiated the final price for the project. And as part of that guaranteed maximum price method, as the contractor buys out the job, as they sign up their major subcontractors, if they find that they can do a scope of work for less than what was negotiated originally, whatever that difference is goes into a savings. And then if we make changes or if changes come up we can use that savings to cover those changes. So it allows us to kind of make changes without having to increase the contract price.”
He said there have been changes on the project, but they’ve essentially been zero-dollar change orders.
As far as access to the facility, which is situated behind Providence, Gandel said they started paving the road around the building yesterday.
“And then once they’re done with that, they’re going to do the access road that leads up to it. And once that’s fully paved the road should be completely open again. When they installed the water and sewer lines they had to close that little cul-de-sac area there, that’s back open and really the only limited access is to the cemetery, but once the road is paved that will be open again and everything will be kind of back to normal.”
He said the borough has been pleased with how the project has progressed he looks forward to seeing it develop over the next few months.
