Minutes - 09-25-2000 - Laserfiche WebLink

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had same additional concerns with the concept/pre-planning phase and would rather have three phases. Superintendent Neil Pedersen said that his board did not see the need for having the concept/pre-planning phase because of the timing and logistics. He said that it would be difficult to talk about design before a site was selected. Donna Dean said that under the design/construction approval, the practice has been that as each phase starts, the school boards ask for the County Commissioners to approve the project each time. What the school boards would like is for the County Commissioners to approve the total projects by components and let the funds be used for components as necessary. This may mean that one component will cost less and another will cost more. Commissioner Brown asked what the reason would be for rearranging the casts and categories of a project. Neil Pedersen said that after the design and bid, there are usually adjustments to be made. Most of the radical changes have to do with the site and construction. Other types of change orders may come about by a mistake in design and the design needs to be adjusted. This usually entails taking money from contingency to pay for the extra costs involved with a redesign. The third concern is ensuring that the entire Board of Commissioners is aware of the potential sites from the beginning. Page four (at the top) of the agenda abstract addresses this concern. There will be a Commissioner representative that works with the school board and shares the information at a regularly scheduled Board of County Commissioners meeting. The next concern was building design standards. Chapel Hill had a problem with the detailed cost comparison analysis in that it would add to the cost of a project and may not be available until the architect has proceeded far into the project. Neil said that sometimes it did not make sense to have a prototype. Since Scroggs Elementary Schaal was built, Chapel Hill- Carrboro School Board is pleased with the building and the costs. However, they know that they cannot build this same design on the Meadowmont Site. They will need a special design because of the site involved at Meadowmont. There is both a time and money issue when considering whether a prototype is suitable. John Link said that whether it was a detailed analysis or looking at a chart and asking questions about the costs, the process of a detailed cost comparison analysis needed to occur. Neil said that in the budget that was laid out for Elementary School #9, the school board feels that they are adhering to the standards they followed when building Scroggs Elementary. He asked that the County Commissioners go back to the standards and let the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City School Board know which standards they are not following. John Link feels that we should go back and question some of the standards that were discussed five years ago. Commissioner Halkiotis said that the idea of a prototype was nothing new. Person, Caswell, and other counties are using the same kind of architectural design considering there is a flat piece of land which the same architectural drawing could be used. He is not convinced you have to do a unique design analysis. That needs to be figured out ahead of time if we are going to have the money to build the necessary facilities in the next 20-30 years. With the budget so tight, we will need to save money wherever we can. Randy Bridges said that for Pathways Elementary, the developer had built the same school in several places across the state and it happened to work for this site. Susan Halkiotis said that if it would be a benefit far the County Commissioners to see a prototype, Superintendent Bridges would be glad to show them around the Pathways site. Chair Carey said that he thinks that the question that needs to be asked is why one Schaal in one district costs "X" and in another district costs "Y". He feels this item will continue to be discussed by all involved on how we approach this type of project. There is no need to do a cast analysis once the bids have been received. We want to have the best quality schools for the lowest cost possible. Commissioner Jacobs feels it would be good for all three boards to tour Pathways Elementary and Smith Middle School. He said that this was another reason to have the site