A Gainesville, Georgia, company known for building schools is in negotiations to be in charge of constructing the new Franklin High School.
The Macon County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved the recommendation of Carroll Daniel Construction as the Construction Manager At Risk for the $130-million project at its Tuesday, March 12, meeting.
According to County Manager Derek Roland, the board issued a request for qualifications in February for the Construction Manager At Risk. Macon County got three responses, and on March 6, the selection committee met, consisting of Commissioners Board Chair Gary Shields, Vice Chair Josh Young, School Board Chair Jim Breedlove and School Board member Diedre Breeden.
The three firms were Carroll Daniel Construction of Gainesville, Georgia, Vannoy Construction of Asheville, and Batson-Cook Construction of Atlanta.
The committee used pre-developed criteria from the request for proposal, such as general company information, licensing information, corporate history, organization structure, years of service, any current projects, any litigation and history of similar project experience, Roland said. The evaluation considered budget costs, what that company’s previous projects cost, whether those projects finished on time, the key personnel working on the project, sworn statements on key personnel’s roles, their resumes and an overview of how they would handle the FHS project. The committee graded each company on a point scale.
“There was a high score and a low score, Carroll Daniel was the high score in this process of ranking these firms,” Roland said.
After going over the pre-developed criteria, the committee interviewed the firms. Young said the process took around four and a half hours on March 11.
“This was a great exercise where each of the firms came, they gave a detailed presentation and allowed members of the selection committee to ask detailed questions about this project, about their timeline for this project, how they felt about this project, things we can do to make this project better,” Roland said.
Roland said Carroll Daniel “stood out in that interview process” and “gave that selection committee a real level of comfort based on their project experience, based on their project history and those experienced individuals in their firm.”
Roland said the next steps are to begin contract negotiations with Carroll Daniel, and then bring a pre-construction contract to the commissioners at a March 25 special meeting.
A Construction Manager At Risk process is “the only way to go on a project of this magnitude, on a project of this complexity,” Roland said. The Construction Manager At Risk will work with the architect, LS3P, to help finish the construction documents, find project savings and cost avoidance while fitting the project into the timeline. The final product of the pre-construction exercise is coming up with a guaranteed maximum price, which determines the contractor’s fee.
“They’re basically saying going in ‘this is what this is going to cost, any amount over that is on us,” Roland said of the guaranteed maximum price.
Young said what stuck out with Carroll Daniel was the volume of school projects they do.
“They’re pretty much the biggest builder in the southeast, they pretty much build most the schools in the state of Georgia,” Young said. “They have 12-15 K-12 schools going at any given time.”
Young noted Carroll Daniel is about to start construction on the new Rabun County High School administration and academic building and built the dining hall at Rabun Gap-Nachoochee School. Young believes having the same company building two schools within a short drive of each other adds buying power to the FHS project.
“Plus, Georgia has figured out how to build a school, it’s not a secret when you drive around down there, they got these schools down pat,” Young said. “Their resume spoke for itself.”
No update was given on the project timeline. Previous presentations said the plan is to begin work this summer, have the football stadium done by fall 2025, and the new school opened by the first day of class in 2026. Demolition of the current school buildings would wrap up by the end of 2026. In January, Macon County Schools received $62 million from the Needs-Based Public School Grant Fund for the project.
In addition to the FHS project, the agenda for the March 25 special meeting includes the approval of a Construction Manager At Risk contract for Highlands School. In February, Vannoy Construction was recommended as the Construction Manager At Risk for the Highlands School project, and the commissioners authorized negotiations.
Roland said Macon County has “a contract we think will work” with Vannoy for the Highlands School project. But the reason it wasn’t up for a vote on March 12 was due to some minor details that need ironing out, Roland explained.
“We’re not holding [Vannoy] up by waiting until the 25th to ink this,” Roland said.
Commissioners close out MMS project
The commissioners unanimously approved a budget amendment to pay for the bi-directional radio system boosters in a move to avoid a lawsuit with the architect on the Macon Middle School auxiliary gym project.
The $69,786 budget amendment from the county’s fund balance will cover the radio boosters in the entire school, including the new building. The agreement also consolidates all change orders from the project and resolves the liquidation of the contingency funds.
The approval came after a 21-minute mid-meeting closed session to discuss the contract with board attorney Eric Ridenour.
“Through no fault of anyone with Macon County or anyone on our team, we just got dealt with a bad hand,” Roland said. “It’s one of those situations where you’re stuck with an amount where if you want to go to litigation, you’re going to end up spending more and it’ll end up a pointing finger contest and never going to be able to get to the bottom of it.”
Novus Architecture of Asheville designed the project and Carolina Specialties Construction of Hendersonville built the $2.5 million building. Work started in April 2023 and had a Nov. 28, 2023, completion date. However, delays kept completion until January, but the bi-directional radio signal booster project has meant the school couldn’t receive a certificate of occupancy.
Roland said there were issues from the start of the project, such as Novus leaving out low-voltage wiring that cost $90,000 of the $120,000 contingency.
“We would have come nowhere close to exceeding our contingency had we not had that major omission and error by the architect,” Roland said of the low-voltage wiring.
The project being behind schedule resulted in liquidated damages, which Roland said was also resolved by the $69,786 budget amendment. Roland said the radio amplifiers were another item that should have been in the original plans and would have cost $87,000 separately.
Roland said at the end, they’re “thankful to turn over a first-class locker room facility” to Macon Middle School’s students.