Unanticipated Work On Edmond Town Hall

May Put Excavation Off Until Spring

By John Voket

Excavation activity on the west side of Edmond Town Hall fell quiet just a few hours after it began several weeks ago, when contractors discovered problems with the building’s foundation and soil characteristics. Architect Frank Black told the Town Hall Board of Managers Tuesday evening that the foundation adjacent to the towns finance office has an eight-foot variance from the level of the foundation near the gymnasium.

He also suggested that rocky and unstable soil consistency in the area of excavation will likely require special support infrastructure to sustain the weight of an elevator shaft and permit contractors to work safely in the area during the construction.

The news was the latest in a series of issues related to the protracted project. Those ongoing delays recently forced First Selectman Herb Rosenthal to request an extension on a state grant for the elevator and ADA compliance initiative, and may jeopardize additional underwriting and grants for the project.

Mr Black told the commissioners that soon after the excavation contractors broke ground in late November, that they discovered the foundation around the elevator shaft site was not as deep as anticipated.

“There has to be some shoring up of the area,” Mr Black said. “The soil conditions are too loose to continue digging there.”

Mr Black told commissioners that the excavation has been further delayed while he obtains bids for the additional work from companies that specialize in such procedures. Two of the four bids he is expecting, one from a company in New York, and another from Oxford, have come in at $74,000 and $137,000, respectively.

Commissioners expressed a combination of shock and frustration upon hearing about the two bids. But Mr Black reassured the group that the bids seemed high, and he was confident two additional bids he was waiting for would be lower.

“Frankly, I find these prices to be absurd,” Mr Black said. “We’re talking about [shoring up] 20 feet of wall here. I expect it to come in at a much more reasonable cost.”

He said the local company, Soil Testing of Oxford, justified their cost by devising an “exotic” way of shoring up the area using tunnels. He also said representatives from a Norwalk company he hoped to get a bid from told him they were too busy to look at the job at this time.

Commissioner Sandy Motyka said she had difficulty accepting this latest news, and repeatedly questioned Mr Black about how this latest turn of events might have been avoided.

“Why can a contractor go out and visually see the site and quote us $130,000?” she asked. “And you’re telling us no one saw this before we got started?”

Mr Black reassured Ms Motyka and the other commissioners that once the remaining bids arrived, and a contractor was chosen, the problem would be fixed.

“We should be able to take care of it easily,” he said.

Ms Motyka asked why numerous test borings that were done did not raise a red flag on the soil consistency.

Mr Black replied that the borings revealed things like water level and soil conditions. But they told neither the weight bearing characteristics of the soil at the foundation, nor the depth of the foundation.

Furthermore, Mr Black said the original drawings that were reviewed by a structural engineer did not provide information on the differing depths of the foundation.

“The structural engineer would have to assume the foundation went all the way down,” Mr Black said. “The chances of this happening were slim, but we took a bit of a gamble. It’s expensive to bring out a backhoe and men to look for something we didn’t expect to be there.”

He said despite the arrival of lower bids from other specialty contractors, excavation would likely be dormant until next spring. Mr Black also assured that other phases of the project were moving along on or ahead of schedule.

Mr Rosenthal has taken the architect and contractor team to task in recent months over what he viewed to be unnecessary delays that constituted him writing to the State Department of Economic and Community Development for a project grant extension.

The first selectman was initially enthusiastic that he would be able to secure as much as a half-million dollars in additional grants, but his hopes were waning in the face of continuing delays.

“We still may be able to get more for future phases of the town hall project,” he said, “if they can mange to get this phase done by the extension date [June 30].”