To the Editor:
As a practicing architect for the last 37 years, I have had much experience with construction projects in the commercial sector. Here’s why I support the current project for Monument Mountain High School.
It is a testament to the high school building’s sound planning and solid construction that it has lasted nearly 50 years without a major renovation. But education has changed drastically in that time, and the building is obsolescent in its present condition. That is a fact, and it’s costing our kids and our town.
When a building committee has worked with architects and engineers for several years to define and develop a project, they have explored an enormous number of possibilities, and are unlikely to overlook any reasonable ideas or savings. The committee has heard the public, and they have responded positively within the constraints of regulatory reality.
But there is a significant cost to further delay that has received little notice: cost escalation in the construction industry. It’s like rust — it never sleeps. The Turner Building Cost Index, a highly respected nationwide index which determines current yearly cost increases based on thousands of projects nationwide, sets current annual escalation at 4.31 percent.
The estimated cost of Monument’s bricks-and-mortar construction (not including soft costs) was in the neighborhood of $36 million last year, so a year’s escalation has already made it $37.6 million. In 2015 that figure becomes $39.2 million, in 2016 it will hit $40.9 million, in 2017 $42.6 million, and so on, for the same project. A 3-year delay from now could add over $6 ½ million to the same project, with nothing deleted. Who wants to waste that kind of money to put off the inevitable? Waiting will only make the tax burden worse.
We have nothing to gain, and a lot to lose, by putting it off again. Vote yes on November 4.
Steve McAlister
Great Barrington
