Inspections aim to iron out details; new building scheduled to
open March
Gilroy – Inspectors are putting Gilroy’s new police building under the microscope as it lumbers toward completion, nearly a year behind schedule.
Police are eager to trade their crowded Rosanna Street headquarters for 103,000 square feet of new space, equipped with wireless Internet, workout space and 83 parking spots. But before they do, every part of the building, from electrical switches to stairwells, from phone lines to landscaping, must be inspected and approved before the city accepts the building from contractor SJ Amoroso. The process typically takes four to eight weeks, said co-project manager Bill Headley, and was started two weeks ago, just after Thanksgiving.
If all goes according to plan, said Headley, the building will change hands in late January. Electrical wiring has already been reviewed, but complex systems such as security are still up for inspection. Once the building’s components are individually tested, the whole building will be “commissioned,” said Headley, a process that tests whether the building’s elements work in harmony, or make a discordant mess.
“It’s like a ship,” said Headley. “You can have all the elements completed, everything tested, but until you get out there and sail it, you don’t know.”
Meanwhile, contractors and city representatives are negotiating the price tag for $900,000 in construction blunders, a bill city officials are loath to pay. In December, a roofing snafu cost builders one month and $100,000; mold-damaged paneling squeezed another $800,000 from the budget. Last month, as Assistant Chief Lanny Brown guided City Council members through its freshly-painted halls, he spotted small mistakes: a misaligned sink, an exterior gutter that water-stained the building’s pale walls.
Thus far, the city hasn’t paid a penny for the errors – and doesn’t plan to. Brown has insisted that city contracts require Amoroso to protect its work, such as the error that allowed mold to creep onto sheetrock last winter.
But Amoroso isn’t leaping for its checkbook, either. That $900,000 bill lies at the heart of the negotiations, now reaching the two-month mark. If the two can’t agree who will foot the bill, the matter could go to mediation – a more expensive remedy, said Headley.
“As long as all parties are engaged in discussion, it’s going well,” said co-project manager Lanny Brown, who declined to share details of the negotiations. “We’re still having productive dialogue.”
Amoroso representatives declined to comment.
The C. J. Laizure Police Station, originally scheduled to open last spring, is now due to open in March, replacing the 41-year-old Rosanna Street station. City Hall will adopt the vacated building as an annex, said Headley.
“Police have been working in deficient facilities,” said Headley. “It’s an acceptable public building, but it’s wholly inefficient as a police facility.”
