Council cleared to move forward on new City Hall
By Barbara Arntsen
Published in News on December 9, 2004 2:05 PM
Goldsboro received the green light Wednesday from the N.C. Local Government Commission to begin building the first phase of the new city hall.
The commission approves the issuance of debt for local government.
Last week the city opened seven sealed bids for the first phase of the project, which includes construction of a 30,000-square-foot building next to City Hall and a parking lot.
The estimated cost of the project was $4.4 million, and last month the city authorized financing that amount with RBC Centura.
D.S. Simmons Co. of Goldsboro was the low bidder at $4,139,500.
The city's costs went $278,396 over the $4.4 million figure when it added in a furniture and fixture allowance, a contingency allowance, architectural services, a survey, a soil study and several other items.
City staff members, the architects and a representative from D.S. Simmons Inc. met late last week to see how to cut the cost of the project.
City Manager Richard Slozak briefed the council Monday on the items recommended for elimination from the project. Those items included using conventional blinds instead of sunshades on the windows, using black carrier pipe instead of copper in water systems, changing to a cheaper type of ceiling tile, changing to a different supplier for the brick, leaving the existing sewer lines, deleting the paving of the parking lot and changing from automatic flush toilets to manual flush.
Slozak said that paving the parking lot could be included in the city's 2005-2006 paving program.
Councilman Chuck Allen said he wanted to keep the automatic flush toilets in the project budget, saying that the additional $2,000 could be cut from another portion of the project.
Slozak agreed, but recommended that it be added back in as a change order after financing for the project was approved by the Local Government Commission.
Grimsley Hobbs of the architectural firm Partin, Hobbs and Associates said that none of the changes would affect the quality of the building.
Slozak did tell the council that the furniture and fixtures for the building are "bare bones" and might not be sufficient.
"You may have to come back in next year's budget and appropriate another $200,000," he said.