Westport school construction back under budget and on target for 2021 opening

WESTPORT — In a one-week span, the middle-high school building project went from $5.2 million over budget to approximately $300,000 under budget, according to newly appointed Construction Manager at Risk Robert Gilchrist.

The value management work done last Tuesday to lower the cost has put the project back on track toward a September 2021 opening, according to project officials. Concrete and steel are also going out to bid.

Gilchrist said at Wednesday’s School Building Committee meeting that the new value estimate for the project is $74,833,033. This new number comes after Gilchrist’s firm Agostini Bacon’s initial estimates came in at $80.4 million.

The latter number, released a couple of weeks ago, caused some frustration at the Aug. 7 meeting. The high estimate was the second over-budget estimate for the project in a four-month span.

Architect Jonathan Levi said cuts had been identified without compromising education or building aesthetics.

Gilchrist corrected a previous notion that the target was to reduce the budget to within $75 million. He said $75.2 million is the target number to keep the budget within range of what Town Meeting approved in early 2018.

The entire project, which will put the new school at the site of the former middle school on Old County Road, will cost approximately $97 million. The Massachusetts School Building Authority is expected to reimburse approximately 40 percent.

Gilchrist said the cost-reducing initiatives include installation of a standard, rather than premium, bike rack. Some classes and brick work will also use more standard-priced, rather than premium, materials.

“Again, it is not changing the programming or the design aesthetics of the building,” Gilchrist told the committee.

Committee members have expressed confidence in the new estimates. Agostini Bacon works directly with contractors and has a firm sense of pricing, members noted.

“These are the significant changes here that we feel confident about that will bring us within budget,” Gilchrist told committee members Wednesday.