Construction progress in the Fire Department kitchen area of the new McFarland Public Safety Center. Screenshot from a Huffman Facilities presentation to the Village Board.
The fire and EMS apparatus bay at the new McFarland Public Safety Center, seen from the outside as the building nears completion. Screenshot from a Huffman Facilities presentation to the Village Board.
Construction progress in the Fire Department kitchen area of the new McFarland Public Safety Center. Screenshot from a Huffman Facilities presentation to the Village Board.
The fire and EMS apparatus bay at the new McFarland Public Safety Center, seen from the outside as the building nears completion. Screenshot from a Huffman Facilities presentation to the Village Board.
Contractors for the village are expecting McFarland’s new Public Safety Center building to be substantially completed sometime next month, though delays in the delivery of key equipment continues to push back the center’s likely opening date into the spring.
The exterior of the building, which will house the village’s fire, EMS and police services as well as its clerk and municipal court, appears basically complete. The village broke ground on the $22 million, 58,000 square-foot project in October 2021.
Walls and roofing on the site are now fully constructed, and a temporary heating system inside means that construction crews can continue their work through December and January without fear of weather delays, Jordan Schulz of Huffman Facilities Development, the village’s project manager, told the Village Board at its Dec. 13 meeting.
Still ongoing construction tasks include installation of floor tiles, drywall, ceiling grids and cabinets, Schulz said.
But final touches to the building’s electrical system won’t be possible until early spring, as the project’s switchgear—an essential piece of electrical equipment that converts and distributes power throughout the building—has been delayed for four months due to supply chain disruptions.
In his monthly construction update to the board, Schulz told trustees that his team was working on an expedited 8-week plan to finalize electrical systems once the switchgear arrives in March.
With construction tasks that don’t require the electrical equipment hoped to be completed in January, the site will likely sit dormant for two months before that plan is set in motion.
“We’ll finish the project in January, close the building, heat the building while we’re waiting for (the switchgear),” Schulz said. “Then, we’ll bring folks back.”
Schulz said the building is expected to receive its certificate of occupancy, allowing the village to begin moving in equipment and staff, on April 28, 2023.
Contingency funds cover weather delays
Also during his construction update, Schulz presented the board with about $229,000 of change orders—modifications to the project’s budget as construction progresses.
The village board set aside $1 million in contingency for such changes at the start of the project, and they are factored into the building’s total price tag. The board had already approved $547,000 in prior changes, and the new modifications bring the project to about 76% of its contingency funds.
The largest item in the new change orders was to account for the switchgear’s delay. Schulz recommended a $96,000 of contingency spending, primarily for the labor costs associated with bringing crews back to the site in March. That change was approved by the board unanimously.
More contentious, though, was a change order resulting from weather delays incurred by construction contractors JP Cullen throughout the building process.
Cullen had originally asked the village to pay for 37 days of weather delays, resulting from extreme cold, wind or rain that made certain construction tasks impossible. But Huffman had for weeks negotiated with the builders to bring that number down to about 13 and a half, Schulz said.
“We feel like they may have, or the subcontractors may have, taken their foot off the gas a little bit, knowing that the switchgear was pushing us out,” Schulz told the board.
The contingency spending for the weather delays, totaling $68,000, was approved by the board in a 6-1 vote, with Trustee Ed Wreh dissenting. Wreh expressed concern that a Wisconsin construction company should be better prepared for inclement weather than Cullen appeared to have been.
Schulz brought the weather delay charges to the board at its Dec. 13 meeting because, he said, with the building’s exterior substantially complete, he did not anticipate any more weather-related delays.
In an email, Village Administrator Matt Schuenke said he was not concerned about the project possibly going over its contingency funding budget, and that the village is likely to receive higher incentives than initially expected for its sustainability improvements. The building is designed to be carbon-neutral.
