Skanska USA Selected To Construct Belmont’s New Skating Rink

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Photo: Image of the new Belmont Municipal Skating Rink to be constructed by Skanska USA (credit: Galante Architectural Studio)

A familiar face along Belmont’s Concord Avenue will be sticking around for a bit longer.

On a 7-2 vote, with two members staying on the sidelines, the Municipal Skating Rink Building Committee selected the Boston office of Skanska USA to enter into contract talks to build a new $29.9 million ice skating rink and community center adjacent to Harris Field on Concord Avenue.

Ted Galante of Galante Architecture Studio in Cambridge designed the 40,300 sq. ft. structure scheduled to open in late 2025.

Skanska was chosen in 2018 as construction manager for the $295 million Belmont Middle and High School facility, which is nearing completion for the school year opening in September. As the Middle and High School Building Committee Chair Bill Lovallo told a town meeting in May, the project is being completed “on time and on budget.”

While all the committee members proclaimed that the two finalists – Skanska and Consigli Construction of Milford – could do the job, the majority came down on the side of the large international construction firm headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden.

“I read the correspondence over the best as I could, and I feel just as strong as I felt before that Skanska has the upper hand on the project,” said Committee member Dante Muzzioli, pointing to additional information requested of the finalists.

“They are the best to get to [the completion] date,” said committee member Frank French, Jr.

The two members favoring Consigli highlighted the Massachusetts company’s slight price estimate advantage and its direct one-page plan “how do we get to ice” according to William Shea. Skanska’s past relationship with the surrounding neighborhood (not the best) and a lack of diversity on its proposed team were negatives for Ann Marie Mahoney.

But for the majority of the members, Skanska has the “institutional knowledge” of working for the past five years in town as well as the ability to obtain material and necessary equipment for the running of the building in a time when backlogs continue. The company also has a permit with the MBTA to work adjacent to the authority’s commuter rail tracks.

Skanska is also familiar with building rinks, constructing the facility at Deerfield Academy, a multipurpose arena with an ice surface in Clarksville, Tenn., and several sites in Europe and Russia.

Topping Off Celebration As Final Steel Beam Placed At High School Section [Photos]

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Photo: The final steel beam being moved into place at the Belmont Middle and High School project, Friday, May 15.

The white beam was the final of more than 3,800 steel sections created to build the Phase One – the high school section – of the new Belmont Middle and High School project. And on a warm, sunny Friday, May 15, the final piece of the structural system was signed by many of the men and women of Ironworkers Local Union 7 and the general contractor Skanska USA before being hoisted to the fourth floor level of the building.

With so many events and celebrations cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was a rare moment where the builders and contractors could stand for a moment and look at their joint accomplishment creating the backbone of the 425,000 sq.-ft. school.

With a small fir tree – a tradition going back nearly 1,000 years – and the Stars and Stripes bolted on the beam, the steel was the center of attention during the “topping off” ceremony marking the major milestone as the symbolic completion of the structural phase of the building.

The beam reached the top and was bolted into place by ironworkers Christian Breen from Woburn and Westfield’s Mikey Fabiani who took the time to shake hands when the the job was completed.

“Many of us are familiar with the topping off tradition. For others, this is the first of many to come in your careers,” said Manny Hoyo, superintendent for Skanska. “One thing is for certain, we’ll all remember the placing of this final steel beam as a testament to this incredible achievement we accomplished in the midst of a period of unprecedented challenges.”

Ironworkers Christian Breen (left) and Mikey Fabiani

While Middle And High School (Nearly) On Budget, COVID Looms Over Project

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At its 99th meeting since it first met in 2016, the Belmont Middle and High School Building Committee on Wednesday, May 13 inched closer to realizing a milestone in the construction of the 451,575 sq.-ft. project as it closes in on finalizing the project’s Guaranteed Maximum Price.

With all the actual bids received by the general contractor, Skanska, and through the oversight of the project by the board (which included a series of value engineering exercises earlier in the process by the building committee to balance the preliminary budgets) the project is at the point where the committee can compare this actual cost of the project against the initial estimated price tag.

The final price of the project is comprised of the bids received, the amount of contingency used, and agreed upon general conditions/fee. Under the GMP, Skanska is compensated for all actual costs incurred from the first day of construction – actually some costs before then – onward.

Going forward, Skanska is responsible for all cost overruns, unless the GMP is increased via formal “change orders” that alters the scope of the project. To reduce their risk and cover any unforeseen costs, Skanska has a contingency fee built into the budget.

And the GMP is darn close to the original price tag for the project. Initially pegged at $238,619,850 – this figure has been revised slightly upwards with allowed transfers of preconstruction costs – after all the steel, cement, rebar wire and thousands of other material and services have been cited and reviewed, the project’s GMP has come in at $240,041,815.

And while the discrepancy results in an overage of $1,421,335, Building Committee Chair William Lovallo told the committee having the GMP coming within a half of a percent of the original estimate on a project this large was commendable.

“I think we did a darn good job,” he said, although admitting $1.4 million “is still a big number.”

Three options facing the committee

While the committee member will be digesting the facts and figures over the weekend – a final approval will come at Wednesday’s May 20 virtual meeting – Lovallo said the once the committee OKs the $240.0 million GMP, it has three options to reconcile the deficit:

  • Approve the GMP and resolve the deficit using the contractor’s contingency fund, currently at $16 million.
  • Ask Skanska to find a way to come up with $1.4 million in cost savings, and
  • Enter into a third round of value engineering that requires reopening the expenses column and cutting items that are ready to be added to the building.

While there was some give and take among building committee members on what could be crossed out at this late time – the most focus was on the artificial turf “rugby” field at $700,000, it became apparent that most members were not amiable to revisiting the process.

“We have gone painstakingly through the [value engineering] process and … determined what we placed high value on and made decisions about it,” said Steve Dorrance, the town’s director of facilities, who asked that a straw poll on members preference be taken. It soon became evident the committee members clearly favored using the contingency account and be done with it.

Lovallo told the members they “shouldn’t beat itself up” if it decided to go the contingency route as the contractor and committee have been frugal using the account.

But despite the silver lining around the GMP process, the dark cloud of the coronavirus pandemic has the potential of floating over the project. While the project still has a “substantial amount of money left” in its contingency funds – totaling roughly $18.5 million if you include the owners account and other smaller line items – Lovallo said that money could be seen as quite small if COVID-19 makes a substantial return in the fall or winter.

In a worse case scenario of a major resurgence that forces the closure of the building site or reduce the number of workers on the site to 25 would likely result in millions in incremental costs to the project. Lovallo said that similar sized projects in the Boston area have experienced losses in “seven figures.”

At that point, Belmont would have to really reconsider the project. I don’t see how [the town] would want to be supporting 10s of millions of dollars in COVID costs. It just doesn’t make any sense,” said Lovallo.

“There’s a big discussion we have to have and understand what the options ared of maybe shutting a job down and starting up when work can be a lot more efficient than just pumping millions of dollars into it … just to keep it going.”

‘Virtual’ Topping Off At Middle/High School Project Set For Late April

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Photo: Pouring cement onto the second floor of Area B.

Over the course of the past month, the coronavirus has forced many familiar activities to become virtual events via the internet including working from home, attending town meetings and school.

Now you can add to that list the traditional construction milestone of “topping off” the new Middle and High School project at Belmont High School set for the final week in April “or the first week in May, at the latest,” according to Mike Morrison, project manager for Skanska USA, as he spoke to the Middle and High School Building Committee on Thursday, April 9.

In pre-pandemic times, members of the construction team, the building committee overseeing the development and town officials would come together to celebrate the final steel beam being hoist into place. Everyone would sign their name to the beam while a small pine tree and Old Glory would be attached to the beam, reminiscent of an old fashion, barn-raising.

So keeping with the new realities, the topping off of the high school section and administration wings of the $295 million project will be done remotely, broadcasted to the community via the internet and on local cable.

But for those who will miss the hoopla, Belmont Superintendent John Phelan pointed out there will be a second topping off, this one for the project’s Middle School section in two to three years down the road.

Morrison took the time to revealed an extensive social distancing plan currently underway at the site due to the ongoing pandemic. Belmont continues to allow the building trades to work on the job where Boston and Cambridge have halted all construction activity due to the novel coronavirus.

“The thing that is on the front of everybody’s mind is COVID-19 and Skanska has taken to heart everything that has come through the CDC, the World Health [Organization] but also from [Gov. Charlie Baker’s] health and safety guidelines,” said Morrison.

In pursuit of keeping its subcontractors healthy, the firm has custom-built foot-controlled handwashing stations with hot and cold water that are more than six feet apart “where they can really clean up” when they arrive, before and after breaks and at the end of the day, said Morrison.

“We’re emphasizing and stressing the physical distancing. … which is still a difficult thing to adapt to” for many longtime construction workers, said Morrison. Skanska has filled the site with signs on keeping a safe distance and proper cleaning as well as instituting a 7 a.m. start of the day camaraderie building session that consists of stretching and flexing and announcements on the latest COVID-19 announcements.

Morrison provided a rundown of the construction highlights in the past month including the pouring of the first concrete slab with radiant heating tubing on the second story of “area B” which is the wing pushing out towards Harris Field. Steelwork in “area A” – the administration wing that juts out towards Concord Avenue – will for all intents and purposes be substantially completed” this week.

He also heralded “the huge accomplishment” of installing a massive 32-ton, 100-foot long steel truss that will support the interior bridge in Area C and D in the high school section.

One section of the job that committees have raised concerns is the installation of the infrastructure for the geothermal system. The drilling expenses in the first of three fields spiked recently adding $275,000 to the project cost in additional water management expenses which included added labor, material, and equipment.

“We’ve had some challenges” with drilling pipes “into the unknown of the underground,” said Morrison, who told the meeting that “we feel like we have enough education under our belts now” to handle future issues.