
file photo by Boyd Loving
Price tag for Bergen County DPW facility grows by a Staggering $5 million
This has “Ridgewood parking garage” written all over it
AUGUST 5, 2015, 9:39 PM LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, AUGUST 6, 2015, 7:36 AM
BY JOHN C. ENSSLIN
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
The new Bergen County public works maintenance facility in Paramus will cost at least $5 million more to build than originally estimated, County Executive James Tedesco told the freeholders Wednesday.
The project, which had been estimated to cost $16 million, has cost $21 million thus far, Tedesco said.
He also said the project, scheduled to open on Oct. 1, is about seven months behind schedule from it’s originated projected completion date in March.
Related: Cost of Bergen County Justice Center expected to grow by $1.3M
Tedesco has been saying for months that the facility was “underfunded.” But Wednesday marked the first time he specified how much more money it would cost.
The DPW facility is part of a larger multi-project $147-million bond issue that also includes a new Justice Center and parking deck and another DPW garage in Hackensack. Taken together, the work is the largest public works project in the county’s history.
Tedesco said the Justice Center and parking garage are close to coming in on budget. The five-story parking garage is set to open later this summer and the adjacent six-story Justice Center is about six weeks behind schedule, he said. The Hackensack DPW garage is completed.
The Paramus DPW facility, though, has undergone several changes in the last seven months that have added to the cost of that project, he said. For example, one building at the site was designed as a cold-storage garage, to store vehicles without providing any heat. But to allow for diesel-powered vehicles to be stored there, the county has added electric heating blocks to thaw them out in winter, Tedesco said.
He said the original design also did not call for the concrete in the maintenance garage to be sealed with epoxy. That change has added to the expense and the time required to install it, he said.
DPW Director Raymond Dressler said another change was related to how the current administration, which took over in January, plans to use the building. Dressler said one garage bay is getting a lift capable of raising large trucks, so that the county can offer heavy-equipment maintenance as a shared service to municipalities and fire departments. He said plans call for at least two shifts daily to work out of the building, rather than just one, which required reconfiguring the space.
Right; this has Ridgewood Parking Garage written all over it. Village Hall renovations went way over budget as did Borough Hall renovations in Glen Rock. Let the private sector build it.
To get the bid on public projects many companies will put in a low ball bid, then make up for it with the “change orders”.
If it was done with non-Union labor cost would be significantly less but that will never happen in new jerkey.
Exactly, the only way to control the inevitable overcharging and theft by the union contractors doing municipal work is to have the private business owners involved in both oversight as well as funding a significant chunk of the project as well. They actually pay attention to budgets and care about on budget, on-time construction. Exposing Village taxpayers to a pure union job is equivalent to larceny – is anyone on the Council listening or do you just not care?
Seems to be standard operating procedure.
to 10,30 no it would of bin more, because they can charge top rate.
I refuse to pay a cent over $1 billion for the parking garage.