WATERVILLE — The City Council on Tuesday voted 6-0 to hire Wright-Ryan Construction, Inc., of Portland, to help determine the best site for a new police station and see the city through the construction process.
As part of the vote, councilors authorized paying Wright-Ryan up to $115,000 for the work.
Councilors also took the first of three votes to guarantee a $1.25 million loan to complete the $4.8 million Opera House renovation-and-addition project.
The city is considering either buying the Morning Sentinel on Front Street for $550,000 to turn it into a police station or building a station at Head of Falls.
Wright-Wryan will do a detailed assessment of the Sentinel building and estimate what it would cost to renovate it versus constructing a station at Head of Falls.
The company will come back to the council in about a month to report its findings, according to City Manager Michael Roy.
Four firms were interviewed for the construction manager job, including Wright-Ryan; AlliedCook Construction Corp., of Portland; Sheridan Corp., of Fairfield; and Nickerson & O’Day Inc., of Bangor.
Councilor Erik Thomas, D-Ward 4, was on the interview team and said he felt Wright-Ryan was the most prepared and most impressive of the four.
“I feel very comfortable having them work on this project,” Thomas said Tuesday.
Roy said the city’s architect for the project, Port City Architecture, of Portland, also recommended Wright-Ryan; in fact, Port City worked with Wright-Ryan on the Sanford police station, built in 2010, he said.
“So they’ve done the drill once,” Roy said.
Thomas said Wright-Ryan also did the Hathaway Creative Center project, turning the former Hathaway shirt company mill on Water Street into a residential, retail and commercial center. Roy said Wright-Ryan also built a police station in Ogunquit.
“They’ve done projects all over Maine, and Hathaway being one of the big ones,” he said.
The council plans to hold a meeting within the next month to allow the public to comment on the police station issue.
On the Opera House matter, James LaLiberty said the city’s guarantee of the $1.25 million loan is the only solution to a serious cash flow problem on the renovation-and-addition project.
LaLiberty said he is an attorney who was asked by the Alfond Foundation to help with the financial issue. He said he was volunteering his legal skills but was not acting as an attorney on behalf of the Opera House.
He said volunteers from MaineGeneral Health, Inland Hospital, Kennebec Savings Bank and others met to help solve the problem and identified the city’s loan guarantee as the only solution that would work.
Money for the Opera House project has been pledged but is not coming in fast enough to pay construction bills to Sheridan Corp., which is doing the work, LaLiberty said.
He said if the city, which owns the building the Opera House is in, does not guarantee the loan, the outcome will be disastrous.
“We are on a treadmill,” he said. “We are trying to land a crippled airplane and fix it at the same time, and we just don’t have enough time to focus on anything other than a solution,” he said.
In addition to the cash flow problem, cost overruns for the project are estimated at $600,000. LaLiberty said a benefactor of the project is considering giving more money but is waiting to see what the city does regarding the loan guarantee.
That benefactor wants to make sure the funds get used in the way they were intended, and that the project is completed as intended, he said.
“Any indications when that decision will be?” Councilor John O’Donnell, D-Ward 5, asked of the benefactor’s issuing funds.
“None, no,” LaLiberty said.
O’Donnell said the city would be guaranteeing a loan which concerns a city building.
“And if things fall apart, we’ll have liens on our building,” he said. “We don’t want that.”
Councilor Eliza Mathias was absent from the meeting.
Mayor Karen Heck thanked all the volunteers who helped work on a solution to the Opera House financial problem.
“I’m looking forward to the (Opera House’s) opening night on the 27th,” she said.
Amy Calder — 861-9247
acalder@centralmaine.com
Send questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.