Jefferson City Public Schools' Board of Education approved to enter into contract negotiations Monday with a regional construction firm to manage the district's two high school projects.
The board unanimously approved entering negotiations with Nabholz Construction as its construction manager at-risk. This means while Nabholz does not yet have a contract with the district, the Conway, Arkansas-based company is the candidate the district would like to work with.
Jason Hoffman, the district's chief financial and operating officer, said six firms submitted proposals for the role. The field of candidates eventually was narrowed to two, and the board's facilities committee interviewed both companies last week. Representatives of the projects' three architectural firms - the Architects Alliance, ACI Boland and the DLR Group - were also present at the interviews.
In a construction manager at-risk model, the construction manager directly holds the contracts for a project's subcontractors instead of the owner, in this case the district. The construction manager monitors the budget and schedule and receives a higher fee in exchange for bearing the financial risk of delays because of the more direct role in the project's progress.
"What is most imperative for us is making sure that we have a building ready to occupy on time. Cost is right behind that. What I saw from Nabholz was their commitment; they're going to hit that number," board Vice President Rich AuBuchon said.
AuBuchon also said Nabholz showed a strong commitment in its interview presentation to use local contractors.
"One of the things they do when they come into a community is have a contractors' summit, where they invite them all in and explain how their process is going to look, so we were impressed with that," Hoffman said.
Nabholz has offices throughout the Midwest, with Missouri offices in Kansas City and Springfield.
Hoffman said he would like to have a contract with Nabholz ready for the board to look over at the Aug. 14 regular board meeting.
In terms of where the timeline of the two high school projects now stands, board member Pam Murray said she's received some emails from people who wish to see more details of the projects - specifically how much space in the building plans has been allocated for particular disciplines.
Cary Gampher, principal architect with The Architects Alliance, said the schedule the public sees at events like Superintendent Larry Linthacum's monthly community coffee event is a one-page document, compared to the five-page document in Nabholz's interview.
"There's going to be a much more detailed schedule coming," he said.
Hoffman wanted to show the board a 3-D model "that showed what the construction would look like as we went through, and what it would look like August of 2019, showing the gym, the commons, enough classroom space done by August of 2019. The rest of the building would all be still under roof, and they would just be finishing the inside. All the fields, all the parking, everything else would be done, just finishing the inside. We would still have the complete building done August of 2019."
Technical difficulties with the board room's projector system prevented that portion of the presentation during Monday's work session, but JCPS Community Relations Director Amy Berendzen said the district plans to post it online soon.