Chardon City Council to Wait Two Weeks For Heritage House Costs

May 23, 2013

By Ann Wishart
Heritage House has a good chance of becoming history before it become reality.
Contractor Enzo Perfetto, sitting in the hot seat last Wednesday with architect Hank Penttila, told Chardon City Council he is not confident they can trim another $50,000 off the price tag of the construction.
“In all honesty, I couldn’t even say (our chances are) 50-50,” he said.
The clock is ticking on the project to replace the 50-year-old log cabin on Chardon Square with a 2,350-square-foot building before winter sets in.
A $14,000 community development block grant is available to demolish the old log cabin, but the grant expires June 13.
Mayor Phillip King pressed the pair for positive results.
“We realized in December we hadn’t raised enough money to make this happen,” he said. “I don’t want to come here in October and be $50,000 short.”
The original estimate for the construction was $282,000. Perfetto’s bid was about $485,000 which he said he has trimmed down, partly by donating part of his company’s services.
“We are now at $392,000 for the project,” he said. “We have a lot of work ahead.”
Penttila said meetings with each of the contractors has yielded significant progress in cutting the cost of building the Heritage House.
He met with all the subcontractors and reviewed their plans. There is also a request for donations from area businesses, he said.
“Every contractor was receptive to the idea of reducing costs and the donation of materials,”?Penttila said.
The goal is to reduce the cost by using less expensive products, but not sacrificing quality. Redesigning some of the systems like plumbing or HVAC could help, but further consultation is needed, he said.
Penttila and Perfetto said the donations they had expected have not, so far, materialized.
“We should have had the donations nailed down before we went to bid,” King said, “I don’t know how you’re going to close that financial gap.”
As low bidder on the project, Perfetto said part of the problem was that contractors only had one week in which to put together their bids.
“When my numbers were finally tabulated, I was surprised,” he said, adding the project will run about $200 a square foot.
Because the structure is a government pro-ject, prevailing wage must be paid and that bo-osted the esti-mate by about 30 percent, he said.
The city will be contributing about $81,000 toward the project.
Penttila said he has conversations going on with area businesses and in the next couple of weeks, he feels some definite answers should come in.
“I don’t see the numbers, yet,” said Councilwoman Nancy McArthur. “I have faith in you guys.”
City Manager Randy Sharpe said it would be possible to take the log cabin down before the deadline, but it would be a while before it could be replaced.
Other possible solutions to the cash crunch included not adding the maple syrup equipment into the construction costs.
A donation of $100,000 would not cover the full estimate of $180,000 for the equipment, King said.
About $40,000 might be saved if the building wasn’t built to LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environ-mental Design) specifications, he said.
“There are a number of options to explore,” Penttila said.
Council agreed to give Penttila and Perfetto a couple of more weeks to get the cost down.