Albany school district holds meeting on pool project
The Albany Unified School District will be holding a meeting to discuss and receive community input on the upcoming Albany High School Pool Construction Project. The meeting will be held in the Albany High School Little Theatre located at 603 Key Route on Tuesday, January 13, 2009 from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m..
A 15-minute presentation of the planned project will be given at the beginning of the meeting. The remaining meeting time will be reserved for receiving community input on anticipated pool construction activities. Representatives from the District, the Project Architects, and the District’s Construction Manager will be present to answer questions.
This project is way over budget! What is been done to bring the cost down so the new classrooms needed at the high school are built, and the new administration building is built? I have ask before and Marla has not replied.
In Peace,
Andy Austin
I wanted to let everyone know what I have found out talking with the company that made the estimates. Interesting to note that he and I spoke for a long time about the pool yet check this top message out!
The price is too high and we are not getting the classrooms that are needed at the high school!
Please tell the school board to VOTE NO until the price comes down and more can be built with the $10 million.
Andy
RE: Albany High School Swimming Pool Replacement
Monday, January 5, 2009 3:50 PM
From:
“Dennis Berkshire”
Add sender to Contacts
To:
andrew_austin41@yahoo.com
Cc:
“Breckenridge, Paul”
Mr. Austin:
I am saying that the report that was commissioned in 2004 speaks for itself. I do not recollect exactly what was included in the report from over four years ago. I would caution you to compare apples to apples when you compare the 2004 report estimates to the estimates being used for the current pool replacement project. You would also need to temper the numbers to reflect either current dollars or 2004 dollars, but I would not compare 2004 dollars with current dollars. I do not know what the current total project budget is or what it includes. As I suggested before I would recommend that you contact the project manager for the school to get the straight story on this issue.
Sincerely,
Dennis
Dennis Berkshire, Director of Client Services
ADG H Tagline-Color
2226 Faraday Avenue
Carlsbad, CA 92008
760.438.8400 (voice)
760.444.8303 (direct)
760.438.5251 (fax)
dberkshire@aquaticdesigngroup.com
http://www.aquaticdesigngroup.com
From: Andrew Austin [mailto:andrew_austin41@yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, January 05, 2009 3:24 PM
To: Dennis Berkshire
Subject: Re: Albany High School Swimming Pool Replacement
Dennis,
Thank you for discussing the pools with me. After the discussion I reread your assessment. Are you saying in your assessment estimate that you are not factoring the building/cover but only the two outdoor pools, changing rooms, office, and the pump?
Sincerely,
Andy Austin
— On Mon, 1/5/09, Dennis Berkshire wrote:
From: Dennis Berkshire
Subject: Albany High School Swimming Pool Replacement
To: andrew_austin41@yahoo.com
Cc: “Breckenridge, Paul”
Date: Monday, January 5, 2009, 1:49 PM
Dear Mr. Austin;
Thank you for your interest in what I am assuming is the Albany High School Swimming Pool Replacement. In response to your email request and the subsequent email sent to you from Justin Caron please see the following. I would first like to clarify that the original pool repair estimate that you referred to was for the cost of the pool and its appurtenances and did not include the natatorium building and its mechanical systems. Unfortunately, the trades required to build a new natatorium, it’s mechanical systems and the swimming pools will require numerous trades and contractors and cannot be summarized by a single contractor or company. Secondly, the nature of the specialty contractors makes it difficult to use a general estimating company to determine the cost of such a project as well. I believe that the school district and the project architect, LPA Architects are working with a construction manager that is coordinating this effort. I suggest you contact them to get more detailed information.
Sincerely,
Dennis Berkshire
Dennis Berkshire, Director of Client Services
ADG H Tagline-Color
2226 Faraday Avenue
Carlsbad, CA 92008
760.438.8400 (voice)
760.444.8303 (direct)
760.438.5251 (fax)
dberkshire@aquaticdesigngroup.com
http://www.aquaticdesigngroup.com
Dear David Glasser,
Thank you so much for correcting me. Too make sure I and everyone else understand correctly, even though an indoor pool was not on the bond measure the school board is building one in spite of the fact they do not have enough money to build classrooms and are going to use portables? As a teacher working in portables I can tell you they are not very good for learning. These portables being close to the school yard will be especially poor for learning.
Not having enough classrooms for the school hurts recruiting new teachers. Why? Because teachers want their own classrooms, moving around is very hard on teachers. Please ask Ron if you do not believe me on this. We need all five classrooms not an indoor pool.
I also noticed some strange reference to making the outdoor pool ready for a building in the future. Does the school board know that the state building codes change therefore forcing upgrades to the outdoor pool anyway before it becomes an indoor pool? This might meaning tearing the whole thing out. My guess is this type of underground work is a waste of money.
David my main point is get the information on the web site and I and others can tear into it finding ways to save money.
David, with the market the way it is please force re-bids on everything. At Christmas I volunteered to feed the homeless in San Francisco, I meet a family in the construction business volunteering also who said they would have to work another ten years before retiring because of the current slow down. There are lots of hungry contractors out there. Re-bid.
In Peace,
Andy
— In ahscommunitybulletinboard@yahoogroups.com, david glasser wrote:
>
>
> Andy,
> You are incorrect in the bond langauge that described the facilities to be constructed (i.e. never included anything about two covered pools)- who did you get the information from?
>
>
Dear AUSD School Board Members:
The bond measure for $10 million that was passed was to include two indoor pools, five or so new classrooms, and a new administration building for the school district. It has come to my attention via Ira Sharenow that AUSD is preparing to spend the $10 million on two new pools one indoor and one outdoor. In the Needs Assessment Study the cost estimate was about $225 per square foot for two covered pools while in the recent bid the estimate is about $700 per square foot even though one pool is uncovered. I can give you ideas and/or suggestions to lower the cost thus building the needed classrooms, office space, and two covered pools.
I gave AUSD school board members, via an open letter, a web site that shows the cost of a hospital in California is about $1000 per square foot. The things included in the cost per square foot for both the pools and hospitals are removal of existing structures, new foundation, structure and details like sinks and toilets. In a hospital the details include very expensive machines costing millions of dollars, which is why the cost is so high. Another reason why the cost is so high is a hospital has to withstand an earthquake and be useable right after the earthquake, this includes things like its pipes and electrical wiring. I use a hospital as an example because it is the most expensive type of building we build in California. Knowing a bit about the pricing of buildings the $225 per square foot cost estimate for the pools is very reasonable. Pools are basically a reinforced concrete pad with a roof over them. The only real expense is the pump room and the electrical wiring for the pool lights.
AUSD has a web site that has many documents on the pool: http://ausd.ca.schoolloop.com/cms/page_view?d=x&piid=&vpid=1218845931427 . Only a few of these are useful to me when I look at the structures and their costs. I have looked over all the documents on line, I hope AUSD school board will get more documents on-line for me and any others who might want to help suggest ways to lower the costs. I can use the information in the papers to help prove that the cost per square foot is way too high and give further ideas/suggestions to lower the cost.
What I need to figure out if the cost per foot will be higher than $225 are the following documents:
1) The geotechnical/structural plans for the high school. This would be a set of foundation plans which give the soil profile and the design of the footings, pad, piers, or piles used under the building. Although the district has a copy they are paper copies. By getting these from the builder and placed on-line others can check my work for you and add comments of their own. It should be easy to get in a PDF format since most companies use AutoCAD to produce PDF files for printing. These can be e-mailed to the district from the builder. The companies that did the work are normally happy to dig this type of stuff up and send it since it is on their computers. These will give us a good place to start on the foundation plans for the new covered pools and school buildings thus giving us the costs. There is no way the costs should have tripled in the past two years.
2) The original cost estimates for the new school classrooms and office building used to price out the bond are not on the web site. These need to be put on. This will allow me the ability to see the number of classes, square footage, and costs along with further descriptions of these buildings that might affect the cost. This information is critical to understanding what we can build. (We have this information for the pools which is where I got the $225 per square foot.) Also we need any cost estimates for the new school buildings and office created during the on-going process.
3) The current plan view and elevation view of what is planned to be built. I can use this to show these are normal average buildings with normal average costs.
4) Any construction documents created by the structural engineers and construction plans including wiring, air-conditioning and piping. I believe these are about to be sent to the state for approval.
I urge AUSD to not spend another penny on this project until the cost per square foot allows all the classrooms, office building, and COVERED pools to be built.
Sincerely,
Andy Austin