MONTAGUE — The Public Works Facility Building Committee’s Request For Qualifications (RFQ) is now available and copies are available only through direct request to Town Administrator Steve Ellis.
The RFQ is for the Owner’s Project Manager (OPM) for the construction of new Public Works Facility. In other words, the town is providing the qualifications for the job to potential candidates.
Submissions for the OPM are due by Sept. 6 at 2 p.m.
The Public Works Facility project is a proposed 25,500-square-foot building on municipal property adjacent to the town’s public safety complex, in an undeveloped wooded lot.
In May, the town approved a debt-exclusion to fund the project, not to exceed $11.2 million, according to Mark Fairbrother, a committee member and chairman of the Montague Conservation Commission.
The anticipated start for the project is the beginning of the construction season in 2019 to be completed in 2020.
Ellis said the town will need to competitively bid the final design work for the project “due to the cost limit specified in the original RFQ for feasibility design services.”
According to Ellis, the original RFQ expected the project to cost roughly $5 million to $6 million.
It was announced in 2017 by the DPW Facility Planning Committee that the project was going to cost roughly $11 million, because the needs of the department were more than what was expected by town officials.
Since the estimated cost of the project increased, as did the design, which is typically about 10 percent of the total cost of the project. Thus there is a requirement to bid out the final design work due to the cost limit specified in the original RFQ, according to Ellis.
He said following the hiring of the OPM, the next phase of the design will be bid.
There will be a project briefing and site tour on Aug. 15 at 11 a.m. and the next committee meeting will be on Aug. 21 at 5 p.m. in the Town Hall.
Ellis can be reached via email at townadmin@montague-ma.gov.