AMHERST — Real slate for the original portion of the Jones Library roof, as required by the Massachusetts Historical Commission, will increase the costs of expansion and renovation of the 43 Amity St. building by nearly $500,000.
With the town soliciting new bids for this portion of the $46.1 million project, being handled by Fontaine Brothers Inc., of Springfield, J.D. Rivet & Company of Springfield submitted the lowest bid at $1.68 million. That bid is $490,700 above the original low roofing bid of $1.19 million, which was included in the $35.9 million contract the town signed with Fontaine.
The rebid, though, was suggested by the state Attorney General’s office due to the extent of the cost increase in moving from artificial slate to natural slate, an outcome of the so-called Section 106 process that calls for minimizing or avoiding adverse effects on the historic property. That process was required to access federal grants for the project, like a $1.1 million Economic Development Initiative grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Town Manager Paul Bockelman said Tuesday that the higher costs for the slate roof will mean the project has a smaller contingency than the 8.5% estimated in April, when the Town Council rejected a measure to rescind the borrowing authorization to pay for the building work.
The latest project budget, adjusted to include this contract adjustment, reflects an overall project contingency of about $2.76 million, or slightly more than 7.5% of the available project budget.
The slate roof will mean an increase of more than double the $200,000 in added costs estimated by trustees in January when the board heeded the state commission. But trustees at the time observed that no additional money would need to be raised through the capital campaign, and that the general contract wouldn’t need to be rebid.
The capital campaign is raising the money on top of the $15.8 million committed by the Town Council and $15.6 million from two Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners grants.
J.D. Rivet had been the second low bidder during the original bid, at $1.35 million, so added $335,200 from its original bid to do real slate rather than artificial slate. All eight roofing companies that were previously prequalified for the project were invited to submit new bids, though only four did so.
The other three bids for the genuine slate work ranged from $1.79 to $2.36 million.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.
