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Robert Tomlinson
news director
CENTERVILLE — TowerPinkster will soon no longer be the architect of record for Centerville’s ongoing multimillion-dollar courthouse renovation project.
At Tuesday’s St. Joseph County Commission meeting, commissioners narrowly voted 4-3 to have County Administrator Teresa Cupp begin negotiations to terminate the county’s contract with TowerPinkster to provide construction services for a $7.7 million courthouse renovation. .
The move means the county will negotiate an exit from TowerPinkster, rebid for construction services and begin planning building renovations with a new construction company near the beginning, potentially delaying the project.
District 3 Commissioner Rusty Baker, District 7 Commissioner Terry Conklin, District 1 Commissioner Jared Hofmaster and District 6 Commissioner Ken Malone voted in favor of terminating the contract, while District 3 Commissioner Dennis Allen, District 4 Commissioner Luis Rosado and District 2 Commissioner Rick Schaeffer objected.
The move comes as commissioners raised concerns about the company’s delays in the planning process and apparent communication issues between TowerPinkster, the county’s owners’ representative Barton Group, ABM and the county itself.
TowerPinkster architect Shawn Parshall and TowerPinkster president and CEO Bjorn Green attended Tuesday’s meeting to explain their positions to the commissioners.
Parshall detailed the timeline of events regarding the current issue, starting with early discussions with stakeholders about which level of court the district court should be located at. He said those conversations “took a little while” because Sawyer of the Jen Barton Group told commissioners at last week’s executive committee meeting that they had “disagreement” with the district and circuit courts over the layout.
Later, Parshall said there were issues with accessing information about the county’s energy performance contract and construction machinery from facilities services company ABM. He said he requested information from ABM in writing in mid-November, but after multiple attempts to contact ABM, they contacted them two weeks ago to receive the contract for the first time, saying last week was their first received the contract. ABM has been instructed to be willing to negate any part of the agreement specifically for the courthouse to help facilitate work.
“I know the Patton Group and the county have done a lot of work to try to figure out what this information is,” Parshall said. “Our intention in doing this is not to delay the process at all;”
Parshall added that the company relies on the Barton Group for information because they are the county’s “first contact” with the project.
Baker then expressed the same frustration and anger at ABM as he did at last week’s executive committee meeting, lashing out at Parshall, accusing TowerPinkster of a clear lack of communication with anyone over a three-week period in late 2023.
“You haven’t answered a damn phone call in three weeks. Not one,” Baker said. “I don’t know about anyone else in this room, but if you have a contractor and they don’t contact you for three weeks, you look for someone else. It’s ridiculous. I’ve heard excuses, excuses, excuses, but I Didn’t hear a word from you, ‘I’m sorry we missed your deadline and we put you on the back burner.’ Not one. All I heard was, ‘This is a Barton Group problem,’ “It’s their problem,” “their problem,” and you don’t communicate. You don’t communicate at all. I have a schedule of not communicating. The one thing you’re really good at communicating about is bills.”
Parshall explained that Baker’s timeline “does not include other conversations that took place,” which led to Baker briefly interrupting before fellow commissioners allowed Parshall to continue and say he was involved in a meeting with the Barton Group on another project. Just after the New Year” and spoke of ABM’s “challenges of not having electrical and mechanical information”.
Parshall said now that they have the information, the company will be able to obtain the design development documents and turn them over to Frederick Construction by March 8, giving them three weeks and then a week to review the estimates before using them Four weeks for construction to begin and documents submitted before April 8. He said bids would be issued around May 3.
Rosado asked how the deadline would be affected if they terminated their contract with TowerPinkster, and Malone said his understanding was that it would have little impact because summer construction had already been “missed” due to delays. window”.
So far, the county has paid $86,000 of the $140,000 in construction work on the project, and Malone said if termination negotiations were entered into, the county would have to discuss how much more, if any, they would have to pay. . He also said the county would “go further” if they fired Tower Pinkster.
“We heard a lot of things along the way, and we retained the information that was discussed in executive session,” Malone said. “We’re not going backwards at all; we’re not going backwards.” Yes, there will be several months of communication between our staff and the new designers to make sure they understand the process for the courthouse. “
Allen recalled comments made by Kupp, Sawyer and others at executive committee meetings that it was not a good idea to terminate the contract and leave TowerPinkster in the middle of the project.
“Are we going to rely on the people we hire and take their advice?” Allen said. “Obviously, we’re not happy and we’re frustrated with the setback, but to go against that advice and pay these people up to $160,000 and start over? … I know this all started when we had a meeting and we got from Jennifer It’s hard to get information from yourselves, and you can’t give us information because you can’t get any information from ABM. It’s everybody’s collective.”
Allen then used an analogy to justify his stay at ABM in this situation.
“If this was my $160,000 and I hired a contractor to build my house and I had to wait an extra two to three weeks to get those plans and drawings and they were guaranteed on a new timeline, I’m sure Wouldn’t give up and have money thrown out the window and be told, “No, sorry, you’re three weeks behind the deadline and now I’m going to start over. “You wouldn’t do it, and I wouldn’t do it,” Allen said.
Hofmaster said he hopes this situation becomes the “bottom line” going forward and compared the Centerville plan to the Three Rivers plan currently underway and how “smoothly” it went.
“I don’t want to punish anyone, but I, like everyone else, sit here and think, ‘OK, what’s the most effective use of taxpayer dollars’ and the services that are provided,” Hofmaster said. “Currently, we are severely delayed due to the construction schedule, which is costing our taxpayers money. It feels like the longer this goes on, the worse it is going to get.”
Hofmaster added that Allen’s suggestion that throwing away the money was “not necessarily the right terminology,” but instead would provide the county with a “work product” to work with others and use moving forward, citing Any design by TowerPinkster is treated as a contract.
Green, TowerPinkster’s president and CEO, disputed the “work product” argument and said having another construction company obtain work product from another company could expose the new company to lawsuits, essentially forcing them to start over with design and information gathering.
“You probably know architects and engineers and have friends in other industries, and they’re not going to just take our drawings and start because they’ve taken on all the liability of being sued for it,” Green said. “So, they’re going to start over. , maybe not from scratch, they might not charge the same amount of money, don’t know. But they won’t take on that liability. It’s a professional liability risk that they can’t take, and their insurance company won’t let them take it, so they will restart.”
Greene also apologized for the company’s communication issues that initially led to the possible termination decision.
“I apologize if there’s been three weeks of miscommunication, and again, our reputation, that’s not the way we work. We’re sorry for what happened and we’re here to make amends and move this forward. ,” Green said.
Later, Parshall was also responsible for communications issues.
“Honestly, communication starts with me, and I’m not good at it,” Parshall said. “There is no update to provide other than that we have completed everything else we can move forward at that time. We have no mechanical and electrical information to inform these solutions and have been that way for several months. I am not pointing the finger. Anybody, that’s just a fact. So when it comes to updates, there are no further updates and we’re still waiting on that information.”
Green assured the county they would adhere to the new timeline Parshall mentioned before the meeting and promised to update the county weekly on the progress of planning for the project.
Schaefer said that while he was “as enthusiastic as Baker” about the situation, he also warned that terminating the contract could incur legal fees.
“There are some concerns about the cost of delay, and if we were to terminate, there would also be significant legal fees involved, which would certainly delay the project as well,” Schaefer said.
Rosado used another analogy in his reasoning for voting against the termination motion, saying that if a ship goes off course, “you take corrective action to get back on course.”
“We’d better say, ‘Yeah, you messed up, we’re angry, let’s fix this, communicate weekly and move forward so the money doesn’t disappear,'” Rosado said.
Malone said he appreciated Green’s acknowledgment of TowerPinkster’s failure in this case, but said at the end of the day it comes down to what serves the community.
“I’m disturbed by a lot about this and the fact that we wanted to bring home a project that would serve the community,” Malone said.
In commissioner comments after the vote, Baker praised the results.
“It goes back to no communication. They can call us at any time and discuss it,” Baker said. “The ball has been dropped in a lot of places, including here. It’s time to stop this.”
In other business…
- Commissioners approved proposal language for the Road Commission’s mileage update request, which will be on the August ballot.
- Commissioners approved a resolution seeking help from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources to implement a five-year Canada goose nest destruction plan on behalf of county residents.
Robert Tomlinson can be reached at 279-7488 or robert@wilcoxnewspapers.com.
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