Belmonte construction back in full swing

SAUGUS – There?s been a “big uptick” in construction activity at the Belmonte Middle School lately, after Skanska Builders project manager Jim Dowd said there was a slight “lull” last month.?There had been a little bit of a lull waiting for materials,” said Dowd during a meeting of the Belmonte Middle School Building Committee Monday. “There?s a lot more activity. And with that we haven?t had any noise complaints this month.”Dowd acknowledged a few noise complaints last month, but said he?s been working with Belmonte principal Kerry Robbins to prevent them.Dowd said there were no new change orders for approval Monday, but noted some “minor” ones ranging from $2,000 to $10,000 would have to be approved at the next meeting. There?s about $325,000 left in contingency money, said Dowd.Dowd also presented a revised project budget recently approved by the Massachusetts School Building Authority. The total cost dropped slightly from $18.93 million to $18.92 million, however, Saugus? share increased from $8.8 million to $8.9 million.Dowd said this was due to $200,000 in unforeseen costs including fire detail, custodian overtime and moving costs which are not reimbursable by the MSBA.Jill Rachubinski, project manager for construction management firm Consigli, updated the committee on the progress of the exterior walls, which had to be replaced because it was discovered they were not reinforced.She said demolition is finished and the new walls are in the process of being built.The walls cost an additional $260,000 to redo. When the windows were removed last month, workers found the original exterior walls were not reinforced and actually wobbled without the windows to hold them in place.The committee voted at its last meeting to replace the walls with cinder blocks.Rachubinski said the rest of the project is progressing on time.?We?re tracking very well with our schedule,” said Rachubinski.In other business, the committee once again struggled to meet quorum at the beginning of the meeting.?I just want to say how disappointing it is that we still struggle at the beginning of meetings to get a quorum even after we reduced the number of people in the committee,” sad committee Chairman Wendy Reed.The committee finally was able to meet quorum at around 4:20 p.m.Matt Tempesta can be reached at [email protected].