– News about Quincy MA from Quincy Quarry

City Hall cost overrun under wraps? A Quincy Quarry News photo

Quincy’s old City Hall renovation project was recently fully shrouded.

While some have opined that it was done to hide the fire-ravaged mess that is old City Hall from public view, most especially given the WCVB Channel 5 remote all-day broadcast from Quincy Square this coming Wednesday, other and very expensive reasons appear more likely.
Quincy Quarry has been in contact with appropriate construction expertise as regards the sudden and as yet unexplained shrouding of old City Hall.

City Hall covered-up but the front gate wide open on a Sunday A Quincy Quarry News file photo

Per this expertise, the shroud was all but assuredly put in place  to help facilitate heating the building so that construction work could continue during the 2015 winter season on a project that was originally projected to be finished by the end of 2014.
While this project was already running a couple of months late at the time of the fire, Quincy Quarry’s independent outside expertise still felt that the project probably would have still been sufficiently along to not need shrouding to help with heating the work site so as to allow interior work to continue during the winter months.

Fire-ravaged old City Hall cost overrun cover-up? – a Quincy Quarry News file photo

The use of shrouding is thus suspected as having been undertaken so as to provide a way for the project contractor to attempt to perhaps come close to holding to its recent projection to the City Council of a (current, ed.) six month delay and $1,500.000.00 in repair expenses in the wake of old City Hall suffering a devastating fire in September by a purported but as yet identified alleged arsonist to complete the originally slated to be an $8,000,000.00 gut wall renovation.

Even more troubling, however, is that the currently anticipated six months delay in completing the project follows close upon the (only, ed.) three months delay and roughly only a million dollars in anticipated damages initially announced by a city official after the fire.
With the past as prologue on not only this project but also all other major Koch Maladministration projects, one can thus only properly suspect that both further delays as well as an even higher final total cost on this latest befouled Koch project are likely.

Granite now missing with both now covered up – a Quincy Quarry News file photo

For example, the use of shrouding.

In addition to the cost of renting the shrouding itself, shrouding is an energy inefficient method to help keep a less than tight building heated sufficiently so as to allow interior work to continue through the frigid winter months of New England.

Normally, a well-managed project only schedules indoor construction work during bitter New England winters if the construction site is sufficiently closed off from the elements.

Quincy Quarry’s outside construction expertise estimates the total cost to instead go with shrouding so as to heat the fire-delayed building and thus allow indoor construction work during the winter is likely to add upwards of $300,000.00 to the project’s total final cost.

Similarly, Quincy Quarry’s outside expertise felt that the shrouding will all but assuredly not be covered by the contractor’s hazard insurance policy barring a most unusual insurance policy rider.

Taxpayers Facing Yet Another Costly Delay?
Quincy Quarry News file photo
Click on image for larger size picture

Construction hazard insurance typically only covers the cost of replacing or repairing items damaged by an unanticipated event such as a fire – but not any extra and previously unanticipated expenses undertaken so as to attempt to mitigate the delay in completing a catastrophically-damaged construction project.

Further, as an arson fire is all but invariably considered as sufficient to void any original completion date contract obligations for a construction project contractor, the old City Hall renovation project contractor is surely unlikely to be unilaterally responsible to cover the shrouding expense so as to endeavor to play catch up in the wake of the fire.

Koch frowning, a Facebook photo

As such, it is thus anticipated that the cost of the shrouding and heating will be likely added to the cost of a project that was already contracted out at essentially its bond authorization of $8 million maximum and thus before inclusion of any of the all too common costly change orders cost overruns and/or delays on essentially all Koch-era major initiatives.

In turn, it is also only reasonable to at least suspect that the cost of the suspected change order by Koch Maladministration to use expensive shrouding will eventually be imposed upon local taxpayers.

Only in the Q . . .

The maladministration will thus also manage to perhaps see the project completed after only a six months delay as opposed to one of upwards of ten months – or longer.

After all, an even longer delay would surely provide considerable negatives for Mayor Koch during next year’s local election campaign season.

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