Letter: Jones Library Building Committee A.W.O.L While Building Project Spirals

A lot has happened since the Jones Library Building Committee (JLBC) last met over a month ago to talk about “value engineering” (VE) of the project to try to close a ~ $7M gap between funding and the sole bid received in the spring.

The Design Review Board (DRB) met and advised against some of the value engineering.

The Planning Board met twice and concurred with pulling out some items.

The Amherst Historic Commission met twice and agreed with the DRB about the value engineering. 

The original list of VE items totaled $2.9M. Now that several of the items appear slated to be pulled, the total potential savings from VE appears to be around $1.5M. However, it is costing several hundred thousand dollars to have the designers make these changes and cost escalation is expected to add roughly $1M. In short, the current VE savings will likely be entirely consumed by increased cost so the $7M gap remains.

Add to that the nearly $2M in lost historic tax credits, the applications for which were rejected because of violations of fully half of the Secretary of Interior’s Standards for Historic Rehabilitation and another $2M of federal grants at grave risk because of those same violations as well as the failure to properly conduct a required Section 106 Review. This project is going backwards by multiple millions of dollars of funding. And all of this is degrading the quality of the original plan. Multiple requests by some town councilors has finally resulted in the the project’s financial status being placed on an agenda for the Finance Committee this week (Tuesday, September 3 at 2p), but the meeting packet has absolutely no documents in it at the time of this posting. 

Finally, one of the arguments the designers made in support of rebidding was that they would get a lot more interest at a different time of year, but that doesn’t seem to be working out. When the first bidding process started in January, six companies prequalified for General Contracting. This time, five General Contractors applied: Colantonio of Holliston, CTA Construction Managers of Waltham, J&J Contractors of North Billerica, M. O’COnnor Contracting of West Roxbury, and Fontaine Bros. of Springfield (the sole bidder in the spring). So with less interest instead of more, and very little left of the intended value engineering producing savings, it’s hard to believe that the bid results will be different, let alone $7M better.

Which brings us to the role of the JLBC in all of this. The committee’s charge is clearly laid out. ​​”The JLBC will guide the Jones Library Restoration and Building project. All major decisions shall be brought to the JLBC for review, approval, and formal submission to the Library Board of Trustees and Town Manager for final approval, as required.”

Library Trustee President and JLBC chair Austin Sarat has informed various municipal bodies that several value engineering items have been reinstated, but he has no authority to make that decision on his own. The building committee must discuss and vote on these changes but there is currently no indication that a meeting is planned.

The JLBC must convene before the designers are allowed to send this project back out to bid. It is their duty to assess the state of the project and decide whether or how to proceed. The Town Council also has a fiduciary responsibility to reassess the implications of all these developments and determine whether this is a realistically viable investment of town resources.

Maria Kopicki

Maria Kopicki is a resident of Amherst’s District 5.