Common House minutes: 2003-04-15

Minutes:

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Hi,
Here are some notes from the Common House meeting at Phoenix contractors' office on 4/15. In attendance: Ted, [[Elph]], JD, Kirk and Bill Kinley form Phoenix, Nick.

Some information in here will be discussed Monday night at the business meeting as well as at Design and Steering this weekend. In the interest of getting everyone up to speed (particularly the Design and CH committees, who will meet Friday and/or Saturday) I'm sending this out without review by [[Elph]] or JD. I trust they will correct or clarify as necessary. Part 2 to follow tomorrow.
Ted

BIG-PICTURE STUFF
Kirk bid out the common house more or less as spec'd in Katie's drawings. The bid came back well over out $500K target. Initial bids were around $750K. Part of the 'overage' was due to some recent code changes that require additional engineering work and signoffs, and lead to some elements being (in Kirk's opinion) overdesigned for what they need to do, but largely this appears to just be a pretty expensive building--its per-square-foot-price is not really ever going to hit the target we thought Katie was shooting for.

This has implications for the project as a whole. Kirk has whittled the bid down, but the lowest we can reasonable expect to get is about $650K. We have $350K in the budget for the CH, and the rest was to come from contingency. Since our contingency is only in the range of $300K, that leaves no money for anything else. So in addition to the value-engineering Kirk did on the CH, he also identified some other cuts we could make in other areas of the project to come up with extra money. These were discussed as well.

Common House Specific Items:
Kirk made certain assumptions to get the bid down where he did. The vast majority have no actual impact on the use and experienc eof the common house, but are buried in the walls or whatever. Here are some of them. [We have more detailed notes for anyone who is interested, and I will try to get electronic copies for distribution. I'm a lousy typist so to keep this moving I won't type them all]:

When Phoenix digs the footings, Kirk assumes that the soil is stiff enough that they won't require the trenches to be reinforced while they construct the footings. If it turns out to be too sandy or loose, we could incur some additional expense for some or all of the footings. Might be up to $20k for the whole building.

Bid includes nothing outside the building footprint shown on the plans, except for a small north patio extension so that the paving will meet up with the site-planned walkways. The south patio is not shown on the plans and so is not part of this bid.

Kirk could not find a local contractor to do blown-in cellulose and so bid out standard fiberglass. He says since the local guys don't do it, it will inevitably be more expensive than the current bid if he can find someone. He does not like the material either.

DEDUCT ALTERNATES
A deduct alternate is a small chunk of the project that is easily deleted because it doesn't affect building systems like HVAC, plumbing, etc. in a significant way. Deleting the built-in sitting-room cabinets is an example. Hacking off the two western-most offices would be a lousy deduct alternate.

Katie suggested a group of possible deducts. Kirk though most were silly and did not check to see what price reductions would result (example: residents doall drywall taping and plastering, prep for painting).

Kirk priced three deduct alternates:
delete colored concrete, omit doors from bike sheds, small changes to skylights. The total of all three is $4350.

VALUE ENGINEERING
Kirk suggests several alterations to Katie's plans that will save significant money:

Omit gutters and downspouts. If done in initial construction these may need to be hooked into the stormwater system rather than dumping onto the ground. Kirk suggests we omit entirely and add some gutters only as needed in the future once we know where it's drippy.
SAVINGS: $18.6K

Omit some flashing around base of foundation; Kirk things we will have frost heave problems as designed anyway; we can paint with sealant instead.
SAVINGS: $8000

Change to electrical wiring spec.
SAVINGS: $4720

No landscaping. next to building (a gray area; not clear if any landscaping was ever really part of CH budget or not.)
SAVINGS: $5000 approx.

Omit spec'd chain-link construction fence during CH construction.
$8000

Substitute another brand vinyl window instead of Strassburger we get via Royal (probably marked up).
$8300

This gets us down to around $698K.

There might be some flexibility in the HVAC system design; Kirk is researching. Current system cost is roughly equivalent to a $20000 system in a C unit--clearly preposterous. HVAC, plumbing, etc. need to be signed off by engineers now; if we can find an engineer that will sign off on the system Kirk and his HVAC guy think will work, we could save an unspecified amount. Perhaps $10K. This might require carving some HVAC space out of some of the rooms, though. Might also be able to reduce the official capacity (# of persons) of the building to reduce air exchange requirements and hence the total system capacity. Perhaps a few K out of the plumbing; similar issues apply.

Now down to $685K

Additional deduct that Kirk thinks is worthwhile: we paint the building. Cedar siding is prefinished so this means trim on exterior and the entire interior. This could save about $24000.

Now at about $660K. Kirk thinks $650-670K is about the best we'll be able to do without major changes. There are other little things (e.g. off-the shelf cabinets in sitting room rather than custom, floor deducts) but no other items that will take a big bite out of the price, and they tend to be things that adversely affect the aesthetics and livability.

A GAMBLE?
Lumber bids are wrong (low) about 80% of the time, basically. Kirk had the best estimator at Fingerle do his bid, and will add 5-10% to our charges cover overages. This is our insurance policy. If it costs more than that 5-10%, Phoenix eats it. If we want to roll the dice, we could assign an allowance to the lumber bid . If it's low, we save. If it's high, GO eats it, not Phoenix. JD strongly advises we NOT do this.

So basically we have a $650K building and $350 budgeted to build it. The contingency we can count on is about $290. So we could build the CH and not fund anything else. Or find other ways to finance.

Nick researched commercial mortgages. We could borrow $100K for 20 years at 6.5% and pay about $750/month. About $1100 for $150K. Could easily support these loans with office income.

OTHER OPTIONS
You'll have to wait for the next thrilling episode...I'm sleepy!
But there are some other project...edits, let's say...that could get us some additional funds. More on garages, decks, pavers and more in our next chapter.

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Common House Notes Part Deux: The Sequel

So we've got a real expensive building to pay for, and now we're looking for places we could pick up some money from other parts of the project. Kirk has identified some possibilities. We also discussed some loose ends from construction meetings.

DECKS
We've been operating under some misinformation, apparently. It seems there is no code requirement for a deck under the walkout bedroom windows on the back. Kirk notes several drawbacks to the walkout decks in the plans. Electrical stuff is buried 8 ft from the buildings; all footings will have to work around that. The footings themselves will be hard to pour; with the slope behind those buildings he can't drive a cement truck back there. The deck size is ambiguous; it's never been 'officially' drawn. The decks in the Royal plans are pretty much their fantasy; they knew there were decks planned, but since it wasn't their job to build them they just drew something in. In any case the deck was never intended to be very big, and Kirk thinks it won't be very functional; at 4 ft deep by 8-11 ft wide you'll have minimal space to put furniture & stuff. It's silly to invest in all the footings, anchorings, railings and support structure (which Ted assumes is the expensive part) and get only a small platform on top of it.

Also some problems with non-walkout stoops. If you get too many steps, you legally need a railing. Argh. This adds complexity and so on that we'd hoped to avoid. Will try to to grade as high as possible so maybe we can avoid that, maybe even get by with only a step, not the stoop we envisioned.

Some people expressed interest in custom decks early on. JD ruled out deck options as too crazy to try to manage. Now Kirk thinks we might make ALL decks optional, and lists advantages as follows: owners can get bigger decks if desired that are actually functional. Some owners could omit all decks now and build later to save costs. Might need to build small railings or screw the back doors shut to get C of O if no deck is present. We might need to build 10 or so little stoops or whatever in locations where grading makes it legally necessary. Rather than spend tons of money on decks that are of limited usefulness even to the owners, we could free up funds for other parts of project that benefit the whole community. He hasn't priced the decks yet but thinks it might be up to $50K.

PAVERS
The north plaza is an area that worries Kirk. It looks expensive and he's only got a $10-15K allowance for it right now. Planters and retaining wall, pavers etc. could get pricy; doesn't think we can afford it. Can we simplify that area and do it later?

Some question over how much we can omit and not have township get pissy about it. It's in the site plan, so they might ask where it went if we omit it.

GARAGES
This is not a cost-saving area. They've cut the garages pretty much to the bone so $10.4-10.7K is about the best we can expect unless we want to talk vinyl siding & other schlocky stuff. Kirk would like to get permits and get going by June 1 if possible so needs a decision on numbers soon. If east building not constructed, would cost about $3K to pave over its footprint.

GARBAGE ENCLOSURES
Still not clear where they are. Hint of location in east parking lot and one in west lot, about 2-3 parking spaces north of workshop. Not clear what twp. is expecting, either. Not mentioned on site plan. Designs are part of garage plans. Have not been priced yet. JD to investigate and clear up ambiguities.

WORKSHOP
Not priced yet. Kirk to get a bid. Makes sense to pour the slab at time of garage construction, even if we don't build.