<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=4QWZCD_1GowJ9Wv00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=4QWZCD_1GowJ9Wv00" width="1536" height="1024" ></figure><p>Warwick's $350 million high school budget is unchanged, Bates said, with contingency covering post-bid changes. A disputed shop change was tabled; window replacement and classroom clocks are coming next.</p><p>Warwick, R.I. — Added contract changes on Warwick's two high school projects will total about 1.6% of the guaranteed maximum price at Pilgrim High School and about 1.3% at the city's other high school by year's end, Bates of the owner's project manager told the Warwick Building Committee at Wednesday's meeting. He compared those figures to a 3.2% benchmark discussed at earlier meetings, according to the Warwick Building Committee's published meeting recording.</p><p>The guaranteed maximum price, or GMP, is the ceiling a construction manager agrees to for building a project. Change orders adjust that contract after bidding. Bates said his percentages include everything now on the change log, not just the items before the committee Wednesday.</p><h2>Why the budget figure did not move</h2><p>Bates said the $350 million program budget is unchanged. "The changes that we approved today and any PCOS we approved to date don't increase that $350 million," he said, using shorthand for proposed change orders.</p><p>He said projects of this size and complexity will see contract amounts rise after bidding, and that most changes arrive early, while buildings get out of the ground and become weathertight. "That's exactly why we carry contingency," he said. Contingency is the reserve set aside within the budget for such costs.</p><p>At the committee's October 7 meeting, Bates reported that contingency at $6.8 million and said it could fall below $2 million given costs he was forecasting.</p><p>Bates said the 21 proposed change orders on Wednesday's agenda totaled more than half a million dollars. He said they mostly stem from coordination bulletins dating to March, April and May, and came forward only after months of pricing and review. He said about 80% of the added costs came from one item, revisions to a career center welding and marine trades shop.</p><p>He said both buildings are expected to be weathertight by the end of the year, that the rate of change orders should then drop, and that the team expects to begin 2027 with "most of the construction cost increases behind us."</p><h2>Shop change held for more detail</h2><p>That largest item was tabled. Members questioned why air lines and electrical work were not in the original design, and asked for a side-by-side of the shop's original scope and the revised one. A construction representative said the change was about $139,000 more in electrical work than the original scope, in part because panels had already been released and must be rebuilt in the field.</p><p>A design team representative said the welding teacher made many changes this past spring, including requests for block walls, an in-room locker area and a taller center wall. One member said teachers had discussed air lines early on. Holmes recommended a meeting with all the participants. The committee voted by voice to table the item. A construction representative said the work is proceeding to protect the schedule.</p><h2>Gym fixes trace to value engineering</h2><p>The committee approved $28,148 to modify gymnasium trusses at Pilgrim so basketball hoops could fold to the side. A design representative said the building was shrunk "in height tremendously" during value engineering, a cost-cutting review, which saved money but had "repercussions down the road." The representative said front-folding hoops would have hung below the NCAA's 25-foot clearance.</p><h2>Costs on the way</h2><p>Bates told members two more items are coming that would draw on contingency.</p><p>The first is replacing the windows at the career and technical center, a bid alternate valued at $348,221, including abatement, demolition and patching. Bates said benefits include comfort, temperature control and acoustics, and estimated utility savings perhaps in the $10,000 to $12,000 range annually. A speaker said the work was always in the scope but was deferred because of budget constraints. Bates said the window contractor, JK Glass, is honoring the price even though it expired in June. He said a change order would come next month so windows can be ordered by Christmas and installed next summer.</p><p>The second is a "rather sizable" audiovisual change order for Pilgrim, driven mainly by classroom clocks after a planned digital time display was dropped. Bates estimated about 400 synchronized, battery-operated analog clocks across both schools at about $300 each, with most needed at Pilgrim. One member asked why clocks were not designed into the original project.</p><p>The committee's next meeting is December 2, when the shop change order and window proposal are expected to return.</p></div></body>

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Warwick's $350 million high school budget is unchanged, Bates said, with contingency covering post-bid changes. A disputed shop change was tabled; window replacement and classroom clocks are coming next. Warwick, R.I. — Added contract changes on Warwick's two high school projects will total about 1.6% of the guaranteed maximum price...

Warwick High School Cost Changes Running Below Benchmark, Bates Says

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Warwick's $350 million high school budget is unchanged, Bates said, with contingency covering post-bid changes. A disputed shop change was tabled; window r

Warwick High School Cost Changes Running Below Benchmark, Bates Says

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