Change order's OK will end haggling

The center's total cost, estimated at $45 million, should be known shortly.
By DAVID SKOLNICK
CITY HALL REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- The city's board of control will approve the final Chevrolet Centre construction change order Thursday after more than two months of negotiations about this particular request.
With this change order, the construction cost of the center is $28,998,614.72. The original cost of the work, before change orders, was $26,908,064.72.
That is 7.8 percent higher than the original proposals, well within the accepted 10 percent overrun amount on projects this size, said Carmen S. Conglose Jr., deputy director of public works who supervised the center's construction phase for the city.
Also, it's below the engineer's estimate of about $31 million for the construction part of the project.
The change order to be considered Thursday by the board of control calls for a $445,560 payment to Bruce & amp; Merilees Electric Co., the New Castle, Pa., company that handled electrical work at the city-owned facility.
Conglose said he was quite surprised to receive a request in February to pay $461,180 to Bruce & amp; Merilees for 24 change orders.
City didn't know
International Coliseums Co. of Arizona, the center's construction manager and a subsidiary of Global Entertainment Corp., approved the additional work without the city's knowledge, Conglose said.
Also approving the work were Hunt Construction, a Texas company that assisted ICC with construction supervision, and MS Consultants, the Youngstown company that served as the project's architect, he said.
The city was kept out of the loop on the Bruce & amp; Merilees change orders, Conglose said, even though the companies had been told to inform him of such information.
Conglose said MS Consultants officials told him that the construction project moved too quickly, making it impossible for the company to design certain aspects of the center.
"That's a weak excuse at best," Conglose said.
Instead of updating the designs, MS Consultants, along with ICC and Hunt, agreed to have Bruce & amp; Merilees handle some work at the center without the city's knowledge, Conglose said.
K. Anthony Hayek, MS' director of architecture, and Dan Vailant, ICC's vice president and project manager, couldn't be reached Tuesday to comment on this issue.
ICC received $750,000 from the city for construction management.
Global Entertainment serves as the center's operations manager, and through the facility's first five months, its profit is less than half of what the company had projected.
The city questioned $312,395 of the Bruce & amp; Merilees' change orders including the installation of telephone, cable television and audio systems for the facility, Conglose said.
Through negotiations, Bruce & amp; Merilees agreed to lower its price, so the city will end up paying 90 percent of the questioned amount.
The electric company's original proposal for electric work at the center was $2,015,446. With this final change order, Bruce & amp; Merilees will receive $2,731,290, an increase of 35.5 percent from the original proposal.
Many grouped
In all, there were nearly 300 change orders for the center. But there are numerous cases where the city grouped a number of change orders into one change order.
Roger Kreps Drywall, a Boardman company that installed drywall and metal panels at the center, had the most change orders with 50. The change orders increased Kreps' cost from $2,199,933 to $2,268,771.
Ohio Steel Industries, a Columbus-based company that provided structural steel for the project, had 16 change orders that increased its cost from $3,629,000 to $4,048,305.
A.P. O'Horo of Liberty, which provided the facility's concrete, installed stilts and provided a small amount of steel, submitted 22 change orders raising its cost from $1,620,000 to $2,083,969.
Of the 33 center contractors, eight had no change orders.
The largest cost reduction was for Irwin Seating Co. The Grand Rapids, Mich., company installed seating for the arena. Its original proposal was for $914,567.68, but a change in the seating design reduced that cost to $682,989.68.
The construction cost doesn't include expenses for construction management and architectural designs, land acquisition, environmental work, the installation of water and sewer lines, furnishings, equipment and utility costs.
The city is estimating the center's cost at $44.8 million to $45 million.
The final figure won't be known for a few more weeks, said Finance Director David Bozanich. Among the outstanding costs are proposals for a marquee and signs for the building, he said.
skolnick@vindy.com