New city hall project nears completion
Hidden problems lead to delays, increased costs
Five months behind schedule and costing $431,000 more than expected, the new city hall for Kalispell could be completed in March.
The remodeling of the old Wells Fargo bank building into a new city hall should be done by mid-March, with March 20 being the latest contractual deadline, said Nicholas Oswood, project manager for Oswood Construction Co. of Great Falls.
That is almost five months behind the original deadline of Oct. 30.
And the remodeling contract has grown from roughly $1.2 million to $1.631 million with some last-minute tweaking possible.
Hidden problems kept getting unearthed as the remodeling progressed, causing delays and cost increases at the old Wells Fargo building at 201 First Ave. E.
The project has had 12 change orders covering 86 individual items, Oswood said.
But changes can have ripple effects.
"Unfortunately, one change order can beget others," Oswood said. "This building has had more issues than anyone could have guessed."
Oswood and City Manager Jim Patrick detailed the unexpected problems and change orders:
The Wells Fargo structure consists of three buildings that already have been remodeled several times. When walls and ceilings were removed during the current remodeling, unexpected wrinkles showed up such as parts of one floor being up to four inches higher than the rest at some points.
Concrete walls and one leftover concrete staircase were found behind walls after they were demolished.
The roof needed replacing. And unexpected open spaces were found between the ceiling and the roof, which required changes in the sprinkler system. More asbestos was found than expected.
The basement floor plan was changed. A gap was found between part of a basement concrete floor and another slab of concrete beneath it, which had to be filled. Air conditioning had to be added to a data storage room. Some extra work was needed to ensure the building met the city's building codes.
Most of those glitches have been fixed.
Right now, the remodeling project is waiting for an elevator to provide basement access for disabled people. Also, a cracked truss was recently found beneath the roof. Problems with seams have shown up in the carpeting, requiring a wait for new carpeting to arrive.
Patrick said the problems have been a combination of unknown factors popping up, some city errors and some contractor errors.
Oswood disagreed, saying contractor errors have not been a factor, and that the delays and cost increases are mostly due to the number of change orders. Oswood said many change orders were needed to improve the quality of the remodeled building.
Kalispell's current city hall has 26,299 square feet and holds roughly a third of the city's approximately 195 employees.
The city has been leasing almost an additional 6,000 square feet of office space for its parks, community development and planning departments.
The Wells Fargo building has 19,662 square feet on its ground floor and basement. A late 2007 change order added a 1,600-square-foot mezzanine for future offices.
The plan is to move all of the city's administrative offices to the Wells Fargo building - leaving the fire and police departments plus the municipal court in the current city hall.
When the remodeling is done, the planning and community development departments likely will be the first to move into the new building, since they are currently in leased spaces. Then the public works department will move into the Wells Fargo building from its current location, which is an annex to the current city hall.
Then the parks department will move into the public works department's current space.
Eventually, the police and fire departments and municipal court will expand within the current city hall. No plans or budget have been drawn up yet on how that will be tackled, Patrick said.
Reporter John Stang may be reached at 758-4429 or by e-mail at jstang@dailyinterlake.com