(3/15) Ground hasn’t been broken yet
for the new Thurmont Police station, but the
original design has been scaled back because
the construction bids came in higher than
estimated.
“The changes were made so that we wouldn’t
have to change the footprint of the building
or the efficiency of the building,” said
Thurmont Commissioner Bill Blakeslee who
serves as the liaison to the Police
Commission.
The bids for building the new station came
in at nearly $2 million. In its original
estimate that won the company the bid, NuTec
Design estimated the project at $1.8 million.
The town’s project manager Gary Seiss thought
the project could be done for around $1.5
million.
“The commissioners met and discussed way to
bring that number down,” Blakeslee said during
a Police Commission meeting.
Some of the changes include: switching from
a three-car sallie port to a two-car version.
The HVAC system won’t be quite as state of the
art as planned. Though the station will be
wired for an emergency generator, it either
won’t be installed at this time or a
smaller-than-planned one will be used.
“If we don’t have a generator right away,
that’s okay,” Police Chief Greg Eyler said.
“The electricity comes right on here in town
so we don’t think it will be an issue.”
He added that the other items won’t affect the
building’s efficiency either.
“We have also earmarked a number of items
we’re going to get town staff to do for us to
save us some out-of-pocket expense,” Blakeslee
said.
Blakeslee said that a meeting with a local
building manufacturer yielded some benefit for
the town. “They have offered to purchase all
the wood for us at their cost.”
With all of the changes, it is hoped that
the bid can be reduced to around $1.7 million.
Eyler said he hopes to have the
groundbreaking in a couple months. “I want to
make sure we have all the permits and
everything done before we do the
groundbreaking,” he told the police
commission.
After that, it should take 5 to 6 months of
construction time to build the station.
