Solano County supervisors OK project's renovations

Solano County supervisors OK project's renovations
By Danny Bernardini
Posted: 11/12/2009

Already having opened buildings in Fairfield and Vallejo, county supervisors Tuesday approved remaining renovations needed to complete the $58.3 million Twin Campus Program.

The Solano County Board of Supervisors were given a brief update on construction and voted 4-0 to finish renovating buildings, along with granting the county administrator the ability to sign all remaining agreements to finish the capitol construction project. Supervisor Barbara Kondylis did not attend the meeting.

Spencer Bole, director of general services, talked briefly to the board and said it took teamwork to get to this point. "This has been a multi-faceted, multi-department, multi-facility related project," he said. "It has been a challenge up to this point. But it seems to have worked out well."

The project includes a 58,000-square-foot Health and Social Services building that has been built on an existing campus at the intersection of Tuolumne and Virginia streets in Vallejo, a laboratory that has been completed in Fairfield, and renovations to three other buildings.

In addition to the new building in Vallejo, the county will renovate 61,700 square feet of the existing Health and Social Services building and 10,700 square feet of the adjacent Hall of Justice building.

Within the report was an item stating the $58.3 million budget has not changed, but some costs have been changed to reflect new prices since the project was approved in 2007. Supervisor Linda Seifert wanted to make sure the reallocation of money didn't cost the county anything extra.

"It struck me in tougher economic times, we're spending our contingencies," she said. "Why should we be doing anything more than providing for the unanticipated (costs)?"

Bole said the county is not spending any more money, rather they had some prices drop which allowed for items previously thought too expensive, such as an HVAC system.

"The bidding environment is a bit different than a year ago," he said. "We're not asking for any more money, we're just redistributing the money."

Kanon Artiche, county architect, assured Seifert that even if there were savings, it couldn't be used on other county business. The money used on the Twin Campus Program came from a settlement with tobacco companies and can only be used for capitol construction.