LEGISLATURE STUFF - Never A Dull Moment

Construction of the Justice Center wing at the Greene County courthouse in Catskill in well underway with county officials expecting the structure to be enclosed as soon as this week, allowing for interior work.

CATSKILL - It has been arrested, but there is no financial injustice about a proposed amendment to the Greene County Legislature contract for construction services at the new Justice Center.

Work is well underway on the new wing at the county courthouse in Catskill that will become home to the public defender and district attorney offices.

The facility will also serve as local base for the State Office of Court Administration who will be contributing to payments.

New York State will pay $5 million up front with a $140,000 yearly lease, reaping $9.5 million over the life of the 30-year payback period.

Lawmakers have already approved $28.8 million for the job including $25 million in serial bonds and $3.8 million in expenses added after groundbreaking occurred, last April.

The increased cost was due to changes in the design and bolstering of the building’s foundation, situated at the bottom of a steep hill on land at the site of the former county jail.

And more money had to be spent on excavation of old water and sewer lines that were unexpectedly discovered deep underground, as well as cleanup of environmentally-sensitive spills.

All the extra preparation resulted in construction delays. The amendment seeks to stretch the deal with Freeman Project Services for as many as thirteen months at $18,750 per month.

While funding is available in contingency, lawmaker Michael Bulich (District 1, Catskill) raised questions, asking Public Works committee chairman James O’Connell to pull the proposed amendment.

That was done and further discussions ensued in a closed-door executive session that will now lead to getting more details from the company co-founder, August Freeman, prior to moving forward.

Holdbacks are infrequent at the committee level, though this was nothing eyebrow-raising. “We knew the original contract would likely be going longer than 14 months,” legislature chairman Patrick Linger says.

“We don’t need to have this in place until the end of March, so there is time to do this and Mike’s questions are legitimate,” Linger says.

No fingers are being pointed at the current construction manager. “Things can happen when you dig up a spot that had previous construction, one-hundred years ago and longer,” Linger says.

“The question is, who should take responsibility for what?” Linger says, in terms of the associated scheduling delays, economic impacts, etc.

It is expected Mr. Freeman will be invited to attend the next Public Works committee meeting, in mid-March, aimed at resolving any wonderings.

County administrator Shaun Groden is cognizant of the tangles but staying on target as far as deadlines, even if the target dates have moved.

“We gotta’ have somebody,” overseeing the job on behalf of the county, Groden says, noting multiple obstacles have reared their ugly heads, primarily beneath the earth’s surface. 

“We did 60 or 80 borings. Nothing came up. It may be hard to understand how we missed it but let’s just say the as-built documents from the late 1800’s were probably inaccurate,” Groden says.

“For instance we thought there was an 8-inch sewer line here and it ended up being 12 feet over there, and it was an 18-inch line.

“Then we had a problem with the building design because of the steep slope, then the soil was contaminated by oil from the old jail we didn’t realize was there until we started excavating,” Groden says.

“Hundreds of yards of soil had to be taken out and properly dumped at an official landfill so there were delays launching the project.

“You never know what you might find underneath the ground,” Groden says, and the complexities did not cease there.

The 3-story Justice Center will be connected to the existing courthouse by an elevated pedestrian walkway, originally designed to simply tap into the side wall of the courthouse. Think again.

“When the veneer was peeled off the side wall of the courthouse, the superstructure was disheveled,” Groden says.

Steel I-beam tiers will instead need to be installed, rather than relying on the courthouse wall for weight-bearing.

Despite the various Change Orders, “the project is still intact. No additional funding is required,” Groden says, having set aside $1.3 million in contingency, common practice with any large project.

Progress should now be less disrupted, being above-ground. Substantial completion is expected by February, 2026, with occupancy in the spring.

“It’s not feasible to do this without a a construction manager,” Groden says, noting there could be “litigation on the back side of this,” related to design, engineering, etc., seeing a return of some outlay for the county.