North Egypt News

The Mount Vernon city council recently received a monthly progress report on the construction of the new police department.

During the Feb. 21 Mount Vernon city council meeting, officials received a monthly update from a representative from Holland Construction, the contractor currently building the city's new police department. The monthly updates now come with a small amount of worry after Holland Construction project manager Jacob Sanabia brought news of missing bolts to the city at the beginning of January, along with a change order for $17,000 in additional costs out of the village’s budget. The bolts were a mistake, which happens often enough that municipal projects of this size typically have contingency funds for small issues that arise, but this was a tough bite for many city officials.

"This is money that is for unforeseen items that we think like at midway the thought might happen, but you're not sure it's going to happen," Sanabia said at the meeting. "We set aside money for them so it's there if it's needed. Along with the contingency, the allowance goes back to the city if it doesn't get spent. There was some tenting that we did with the mortar for the block layers to be able to keep them working when it was cold. I don't have the tickets or invoices for that yet, so when those come in though, that will be a hit on your temporary enclosures. Then you could see the balances for the rest of those, which should be enough to cover anything coming up. So, the allowances are looking good."

There was nothing as dramatic at the February update, however. Sanabia informed the council that a lot of progress had been made. All interior metal and framing work is virtually complete, with crews doing mechanical, electrical fire protection, plumbing, and roughing work right now, with ductwork to follow before they start installing the drywall to the interior of the building. The roof and interior walls on the south portion should be finished by mid-March, and once that is complete, they will start with the brick front on the exterior of the building, slowly wrapping around the building alongside window installations.

The crews did have a few days in January and February that they weren’t able to work due to the weather, but they are doing their best to catch up, working ten-hour days on some of the more important aspects of the project. The updated construction timeline shows an end date of June 22 and Sanabia is confident that the project will be complete by then.