Belmonte board approves renovation design

SAUGUS – The Belmonte Middle School Building Renovation Committee voted to approve the schematic design for the project at its meeting on Monday afternoon. The design will now be submitted to the Massachusetts School Building Authority for approval on Friday.?Aug. 19 is the big submission,” said Daniel Tavares, Senior Project Manager for Skanska USA Building Inc. “That?s to establish project scope and budget with MSBA.”The schematic design is currently $3.2 million over budget from the feasibility study, so the committee also voted on a series of cuts, or “alternates” to the project that would shave $2.2 million off the final price tag before being submitted.Jim Dowd, project manager for Skanska, said by lowering the cost by $2.2 million, it will bring down other contingency fees and costs to bring the project back to within the original $18 million budget.According to Tavares, the feasibility study is more like an estimate of what will be done and how much it will cost, while the schematic design is more precise and takes into account actual costs to do the project.Because of this there were several price increases, the largest of which was a nearly $1 million increase to the building facade, which will be a mix of brick with metal panels.At its last meeting in July, the committee discussed using a brick substitute to lower the facade cost, but on Monday Tavares said the difference would be minor.?If we could afford the brick we might as well use it,” said Tavares. “We know there?s a couple of million dollars that need to be made up.”Among the cuts agreed to were the elimination of the heat energy recovery system for $800,000, holding off on replacing the roof which would cost around $1 million and not renovating the administration offices or the gym floors.Tavares said the heat recovery system could be cut because it wasn?t in the original plans.?It was a cost to the project that we did not have originally,” said Tavares.Tavares said he expects to hear a response from the MSBA by mid-September.