10/05/17 — Plan for public safety training facility progresses

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Plan for public safety training facility progresses

By Steve Herring
Published in News on October 5, 2017 5:50 AM

Wayne County commissioners Tuesday morning approved a contract with Stewart, Cooper, Newell Architects of Gastonia for a master plan and full design services for a proposed public safety training facility.

In June commissioners awarded the work to the company contingent on a contract being negotiated for the project that will be built on the Wayne Community College campus.

A timeline has not yet been set, but once the facility is completed it will be turned over to the college, which provides classroom instruction for fire, law enforcement and rescue personnel.

The contract has two parts, County Manager George Wood told commissioners.

The first is $37,000 for the master plan, and the second is the schematic design, full design, all of the documents, bid documents and construction administration and inspection, Wood said.

The cost of the contract for the second phase will be 8.25 percent of the adjusted construction cost.

"Some places you do that (cost) based on the engineer's estimated cost," Wood said. "I don't like to do that because he could be high or low. Typically architects are high on their estimate so that the client isn't disappointed that it takes more money.

"If you do that, then you end up paying more because you are paying 8.25 percent on an estimate. What we say is that you start billing us on the estimated cost, but then we true it up to the actual construction cost."

Commissioner Joe Daughtery asked if the full board would review and approve the preliminary design before the architect begins the full design.

Wood said that was correct.

The master plan is basically looking at the land and deciding on components, Wood said.

Commissioners will make the decision on the components, he said.

"Once he lays it out, then the second decision for this board, after you decide what makes it up, is how do you want to proceed," Wood said. "Do you want to proceed in a piecemeal fashion over several years, or do you want to do the whole thing at one time?"

The committee working on the project will make a recommendation on that, he said.

No design will have been done at that time, rather the architect will be talking about concepts, he said.

None of the actual schematic design will take place until commissioners say so, Wood said.

Then it would go to full design so that the project could be bid out, he said.

Commissioner Wayne Aycock, who has more than 50 years in the fire service, made the motion to proceed.

"I'd like to assure the board members that not only is this going to benefit training for our first responders, not only in Wayne County, but the surrounding area, but it is also going to increase enrollment at the college," he said.

Aycock reiterated that while a committee is working on the project, the final decision still rests completely with commissioners.

Commissioner Ed Cromartie asked if the new facility would take the place of any current training centers now in use by first responders.

"We are not staying they would have to remove what they have," Wood said. "Some of them still may want to use what they have. But we think the facility will be such that everyone would want to use it because it will be an improvement over anything that we have got."

Aycock agreed and said commissioners do not want to hold back any agencies in the county.

"We don't even have a problem with some of them building a small facility that would suit their particular needs," he said. "But we just feel like the facility at the college will put us in a better position to keep our first responders trained."