“The way it was put together was terrible.” “. . ., one of the worst we’ve seen from a waterproofing standpoint and a construction standpoint.”
You do not want to hear these assessments if you are a town commissioner or mayor with a new town hall – completed in 2010 – that has already required half a million in repairs because of the poor workmanship that led to leaks in several parts of the building.
You can call the building jinxed or cursed, but the real reason may be the chosen contractor, Heaton, entered a bid a cool million lower than the architect’s estimate, a bid that was rejected initially by the review committee as unresponsive. Heaton’s bid was $663,000 lower than the next bidder, the Louisburg firm of D.A. Thomas that had just completed Wake County’s Northern Regional Center on East Holding Avenue. The committee did not go on to the second lowest bidder. Instead the architect on the committee, Steven Hawley, spent several days with Heaton executives working to resolve his concerns before recommending the committee approve Heaton’s bid.
There definitely was some sort of hoodoo going on – a fire on the top floor during construction, weather delays – but another reason may have been an assemblage of more than 30 subcontractors. And then there was the apparent lack of oversight because construction management and inspection was left to an architect who visited once a week and to Parks and Recreation Director Susan Simpson, who had been handed management of the town buildings several years before, and was the project manager for the town.
The leaks are back, but in different areas that were not addressed – or seen – during the repairs done in the winter of 2013-2014. Steven J. Walker, a field project manager for Terracon Consultants in Raleigh, an engineering testing company, inspected town hall on Nov. 23 because of leaks that have been found around the rotunda portion of the building between the first and second floors, around the north windows in the commissioners’ conference room beside board chambers and above some of the windows near the southeast corner of the building.
At the end of Friday’s town board retreat, Deputy Town Manager Roe O’Donnell introduced Walker, who said the first round of repairs to the window flashings, the foundation and other areas meant “the water has been forced to other locations. It is finding new ways. In a normal building, those repairs would have taken care of those and beyond.” And he said the next repairs might not prevent future leaking.
“The only way you can be sure that that building would not leak would be a complete stripping of the façade,” taking off all the brick and artificial limestone. Walker said. “You almost want to put flashing at every floor line, above every window, [correct] every sheetrock joint. None of those are taped.” And, “There are a lot of possibilities of areas that could be leaking.”
To address the leaks Walker’s examination found, he estimated it would cost $150,000 to $200,000 because the artificial limestone sections on the rotunda are big and heavy and must be removed with special care. “We’ve got to get a contractor and look at it for the removal of the architectural limestone.”
The four commissioners – Commissioner Greg Harrington was absent because his brother had surgery in Virginia Friday – sat quietly as though stunned. “You don’t even want me to comment,” Commissioner Margaret Stinnett said when Walker finished, then asked about the cost of the first round of leak repairs (just over $500,000) and mentioned the town paid Walker $63,000 for the inspection.
“The statement that really concerns me is that you cannot guarantee that this is the last of it,” Commissioner Brian Pate said.
When Stinnett asked him about the town’s inspections, JJ Carr, the head of the inspections department said, “A lot of what he’s talking about we don’t usually inspect. A lot of that was workmanship and design. We’ve done a lot of projects but we’ve never had any of these problems.” Carr later sent a list of the required inspections: footing, under slab as appropriate, rough-in, building framing, insulation, fire protection and final inspection.
Mayor Vivian Jones faced up to it. “It’s very discouraging but there’s nothing to do now but fix it.”
Later O’Donnell said the repairs, if approved by the commissioners, would be done “early in the new fiscal year,” which would be July, August or September, better working weather than the winter months for the first repairs. He said the leaks are intermittent.
* * * *
There were high hopes in May of 2008 at the official groundbreaking that the new town hall would be ready for at least part of the festivities during the 2009 centennial year. The design with the rotunda was praised, and the building won platinum LEED rating for its water and energy conservation plus the use of renewable materials – bamboo used for the walls – and the recycled barn flooring used in the ground floor entrance.
The town chose Little Diversified Architectural Consultants of Charlotte, and the chief architect was Robert Bishop of the Durham office. The architect in charge of weekly inspections was Eric Schoenagel, also of the Durham office.
The total cost of the town hall, including $835,593 to purchase land along Brooks Street to square off the town hall campus, was almost $16 million. Construction, according to a spreadsheet supplied by Finance Director Aileen Staples, came to $12,339,976, but only $11.2 million was paid to Heaton Construction. Heaton’s low bid was just over $11 million.
Leaks were discovered almost immediately after town employees moved into the building in 2010, and that began a long series of claims, counterclaims and litigation. Heaton claimed it was owed for overtime; the town waited to find out the cost of stanching the leaks; and nothing was resolved until mid-September of 2014 shortly before the matter went to trial. The town was the winner. Heaton and some of its contractors agreed to pay the town $300,000 and let the town keep $205,000 plus interest Heaton said it was owed for overtime. The net to the town was $507,767.75, which just covered the cost of the 2013-2014 repairs, $506,000, but did not cover the money paid to a consulting engineer firm to determine why the roof, the windows and the foundation leaked. Nor did it cover the cost of the litigation.
(The editor is adding the Gazette’s report about the bidding for the town hall that was originally published April 16, 2008.)
From the archives: April 16, 2008
Town hall bid approved
The bids to build Wake Forest’s new town hall were substantially lower than the $12.6 million architect Steven Hawley had estimated, and the winning bid, with all the alternatives, was $11,437,000.
“It shows the market is very good now,” Town Manager Mark Williams said. “Contractors are sharpening their pencils, trying to get work.”
The bids were opened Wednesday, April 9, and Hawley at first, as he explained in a letter to the commissioners and mayor, rejected the low bid submitted by Heaton Construction, a third-generation family-owned business from Roanoke Rapids. Hawley said in the letter there appeared to be inconsistencies, leading him and the others involved – Parks and Recreation Director Susan Simpson and the town’s purchasing agent, Randy Driver – to view it as an unresponsive bid.
However, Hawley said, he then spent the next few days talking with the principals at Heaton and all his concerns have been resolved. For instance, there was the question of Heaton bidding $10,000 for the two art elements – a timeline in a floor and a chandelier – when other firms bid up to $80,000. Heaton explained most of the cost was in their base bid, Hawley said. All the base bids were close together with Heaton the lowest at $11,178,000 and T.A. Loving Company the highest at $13,671,000.
Before the commissioners approved the contract with Heaton, they gave Finance Director Aileen Staples permission to proceed with an installment financing agreement under the guidance of the Local Government Commission.
“This is the tool we’re going to use,” Staples said. “We’re not going to borrow all the construction money, probably up to $9.8 million or a little less.” She said the LGC requires towns to have bids in hand before they can file applications for the installment financing. Most of the money will be borrowed in the coming fiscal year, 2008-09.
Hawley told the board Heaton would be paid monthly based on work done that inspectors had certified was done correctly. There will be change orders, he said, there always are.
Commissioner Frank Drake asked several questions about Heaton’s credentials, and Hawley said he had called the references Heaton provided, who all gave the firm high marks. Drake was also concerned that the contract included some hidden clause which would allow for much higher final costs, but Hawley and town attorney Eric Vernon assured him the contracts were the standard form in the industry with safeguards for the town.
Williams said staff had recommended hiring Hawley’s firm, Little Diversified, in part because of its reputation for careful oversight of projects. Williams also told the commissioners and mayor he would be notifying them soon of the date for the groundbreaking.
The ground is being cleared for construction. Three buildings stood either in the footprint of the new building or in the footprint of the site plan – the former Green & Wooten Insurance Agency building on Brooks Street, a small white house behind the planning department annex and the American Legion building on East Owen.
Both the Green & Wooten building and the small white house have been demolished and equipment was on the sites Wednesday clearing the debris. Workers were stripping the American Legion building Wednesday to ready it for demolition. Janezic Building Group of Raleigh has the permits for the demolitions.
(On Tuesday, Feb. 2, David Leone, the associate editor at The Wake Forest Weekly, went through the archives and shared what he found, which was that the second low bidder was D.A. Thomas Construction of Louisburg whose base bid was $11.75 million and $12.1 with the same extras as Heaton’s. D.A. Thomas had just completed building the $6 million Wake County Northern Regional Center on East Holding Avenue.)
