Construction manager approved for Springdale municipal complex

SPRINGDALE — A construction firm has been hired to manage the city’s municipal complex project, which will include building a criminal justice building.

The City Council approved, with a vote of 7-1 Tuesday, a contract with Springdale-based Milestone Construction for construction services on the project. Alderman Mike Overton was the dissenting vote.

“We had a lot of good firms that we interviewed,” said Mayor Doug Sprouse. “It was not an easy decision, but we strongly recommend Milestone Construction for this project.”

Milestone will see the project through construction although the contract is for pre-construction service.

“If the city goes into construction, yes, we would be the construction manager for the project,” said Mike Davis, vice president of Milestone. “We would still competitively bid out all the trade (work) for the project.”

Pre-construction services include reviewing drawings for constructability, developing preliminary budgets and looking at different construction types to help bring the project within the city’s budget, Davis said.

Pre-construction services are broken down into two phases, with Phase 1 costing the city a “guaranteed maximum cost” of $13,150 and Phase 2 a maximum cost of $18,050.

“Therefore, there would be no additional costs for reconstruction services should more hours be required,” Milestone President Sam Hollis said in a letter to Wyman Morgan, administrative and financial services director for the city.

Milestone recently completed Turnbow Park in the city’s downtown. The city accepted Milestone’s $1.7 million bid to take over work in late December. Work stopped when the city fired contractor JLA Construction of Springfield, Mo., in November.

Milestone was also construction manager on C.L. “Charlie” and Willie George Park.

Davis said Milestone has managed construction on buildings of the criminal justice building’s scale.

“We’ve done schools; we renovated all four floors of the Washington County Courthouse,” Davis said. “We have done projects of this size.”

The city’s Finance Committee, which is comprised of council members, received on Monday an update from Duvall Decker, the architecture firm hired to design both the 80,000-square-foot criminal justice building and improvement to 40,000 square feet of the City Administration Building, 201 Spring St. Roy Decker of Duvall Decker showed council members design schematics of the complex.

Decker spoke during Tuesday’s council meeting and praised the city for selecting Milestone.

“Having a construction manager early on a project like this is essential,” Decker said. “We participated in the selection for a good construction manager and we think you chose a good one.”

The council approved a $3.3 million Walton Family Foundation grant in December to cover designing both the new building and administration building renovations. The council in May approved hiring Duvall Decker.

Duvall Decker is doing the designs for a combined cost of $3,250,508. The design also includes a square that will unite the administration building with the new criminal justice building.

Decker has said the municipal complex’s design will reflect the city’s personality and character. He elaborated on Monday, saying Springdale architecture is not flashy, the best buildings in the city are modest and well-built.

The criminal justice building will be two or three stories tall and will house the Police Department and city attorney’s office, district court and the information technology department. Those offices are in the administration building. The Police Department in the new building will be about 60,000 square feet, Decker said.

Once the criminal justice building is built, remodeling work will begin on the administration building, Decker said.

The building inspection office at 107 Spring St. and community engagement office, across the street from the administration building, will move into renovated portions of the administration building. The administration building will have one entrance instead of multiple entrances. That entrance will be at the building’s north end, which is where the square will be.

A new City Council chamber will be built in the administration building’s north end and have greater capacity than the current chamber, which has an occupancy of 182.

Parts of the administration building, such as the jail, will be torn out and the exterior will be redone to complement the criminal justice building, Decker said.