New CMS cost soars
Rebuilt school plans cost millions over estimate
GREENWICH — Greenwich has already set aside $112 million to rebuild Central Middle School, but that won’t be enough to cover construction costs, according to a new estimate from the construction team working on the project.
Turner Construction and the engineers working on the project now say that it will cost $119.98 million to rebuild the school, which is $7.96 million —about 7 percent — more than the previous estimate of $112 million.
The Central Middle School Building Committee received the new estimate on Monday; the group met with the construction team at Town Hall on Tuesday.
“I’m really shocked, honestly, that we find out today, or yesterday, that we’re $8 million beyond what we were a week ago or two weeks ago, because everything was fine a couple of weeks ago,” committee member Joe Rossetti said. “I just don’t see how it happened.”
The construction team had been working to create “design development documents” in recent months. The process was complete in December. The new cost estimate is based on these design documents.
The reasons for the cost overrun are myriad, members were told. The construction team listed more than 30 “drivers of change” in the new 96-page estimate, including an $88,000 increase for science tables, $170,000 more for a bigger generator, $292,000 to pay for 80 more doors and many others.
The construction team will now create a “value management list” of specific items that can be cut to get the project back on budget, as well as a better breakdown on alternative design options for the committee to consider, members were told.
Committee members indicated that they did not plan to seek more funds for the project and would instead prefer to make cuts from the design.
“I don’t think anybody wants to go back and ask for more money,” committee member Christina Poccia said.
The biggest single cost increase detailed in the report is an $889,000 uptick after engineers swapped out two 75-ton air chillers in the previous HVAC design for two 225-ton chillers in the new estimate.
“I don’t think I heard that the chillers were going up $800,000,” committee member Todd Klair said. “I don’t think we needed (design documents) handed to somebody until you knew the chillers were going to be 100 tons bigger.”
Committee members said they had been operating on the assumption that the building would be about 125,000 square feet, which was the lower end of the range that professionals described months ago.
The new estimate, however, is for a school that has about 129,000 square feet of interior space, which translates
to about 132,000 gross square feet, measuring out to exterior walls.
The building committee submitted some design documents to the Planning and Zoning
Commission earlier this month, but committee members said they would likely have to delay their scheduled appearance on Feb. 6 so they can incorporate any cost-cutting changes.
The town has already agreed to put up $112 million to build the new school, but securing those funds was difficult. design
The Board of Estimate and Taxation approved $2.5 million for planning in 2022 plus another $67.5 million for construction when setting the budget last spring.
The board approved an additional $42 million at a special meeting in October, but only after two Republicans broke ranks and voted with Democrats to authorize the extra spending.
The two Republicans were targets of a pressure campaign from other Republicans before the vote who claimed voting with Democrats would be a betrayal. Neither sought reelection in 2023.
The Republican-controlled BET narrowly approved the $42 million for CMS, but the Representative Town Meeting approved the request with near-unanimous support at the end of October.
The committee meeting on Jan. 30 lasted about three and a half hours, which included a 90-minute executive session that was closed to the public and the media. The committee also voted to keep Superintendent of Greenwich Public Schools Toni Jones out of the executive session as well.
Despite the new estimate, the project is still on track to start in October, committee chair Tony Turner said.