LYNN — The city is seeking a project manager to oversee the design and construction of park and field improvements at six different locations throughout Lynn as part of the roughly $16 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds allocated by the City Council to improve parks.
After the ARPA allocation was approved, the city hired designers to improve and redesign the Bowser Complex at Breed Park, as well as areas of Kiley Park, Keaney Park, Great Woods Park, Gallagher Park, and McManus Park, according to the city’s policy director, Danya Smith. Smith said the project manager would oversee the entire park renovation project, and aid the realization of the vision put forward by the designers.
“The designers are [going to] go through a process that involves community input and community engagement to see what the community wants to see at each of these parks and that will account for the design aspect of this park,” Smith said in an interview. “But as we move towards construction, and actually implementing the design, we think it will be really valuable to have a project manager that can provide oversight of the park construction and the park projects as a whole.”
The designers hired by the city, in addition to undergoing a community engagement process, will do condition assessments of each park, which will allow the city to then begin a bidding process for the construction work itself, Smith said.
“That conditions assessment will essentially tell us or give us an idea of the current, existing conditions of each of these parks. Maybe what needs to be fixed, what should be a priority, what should not be a priority and simultaneously to that, they’ll also be doing community engagement and collecting that input,” Smith said. “As we move towards a design or a final design for each park we’ll need … contractors to actually implement and construct or perform some of these improvements … and then the project manager will really be just providing that extra layer of oversight and making sure that we’re doing this on time and under budget.”
Inspectional Services Chief and Building Commissioner and Planning Director Michael Donovan said he was excited for the community to reap the benefits of the city’s investment in parks.
“The parks projects are something that we’re all looking forward to. They’re very exciting because parks are something that everybody uses, and everybody can enjoy it. So we’re looking forward to getting these jobs done on behalf of the city,” he said.
Smith noted the high price tag in emphasizing the value of having a project manager to oversee such a large undertaking.
“This is $16 million worth of these park projects [and] it will be important to ensure that we’re staying under budget and making sure everything is fiscally sound, especially in the context of supply chain issues and general market volatility,” he said.
Inspectional Services Chief and Building Commissioner and Planning Director Michael Donovan said the city underwent a similar process for the Pickering Middle School project.
“In Massachusetts, when you get over a million and a half dollars worth of construction, the inclination is that you want to hire a [project manager] who manages the projects on behalf of the city or the town. Once selected [the project manager] will be managing the money, the different jobs, because we have different architects doing design at different locations. We’ll have different contractors and they’ll be managing the entire process and making sure that because we’re using federal funds, it’s a lot so Is to dot and Ts to cross,” Donovan said.
Donovan said the ideal project manager is someone who has familiarity with the process of working with municipalities on construction projects.
“Somebody who’s managed capital projects for a municipality before, that knows all the rules of our purchasing, that also has awareness of horizontal construction, drainage systems, turf, parks, and that has done a number of these jobs,” he said.
