In a letter to selectmen South Hadley Town Planner Richard Harris alleges that the engineering firm has displayed “a lack of respect for” South Hadley building commissioner Brenda Church who began work on December 3 - when she almost immediately found problems with the project.
SOUTH HADLEY - The town has ordered a halt to the half-million dollar construction job at South Hadley Senior Center after state and town inspectors discovered problems with the work of the private engineering and architectural firm overseeing the project, Town Planner Richard Harris told selectmen at Tuesday’s meeting.
He has characterized the problems as suggestive of “negligence.”
And in a letter to selectmen Harris alleges that the engineering firm has displayed “a lack of respect for” South Hadley building commissioner Brenda Church who began work on December 3 - when she almost immediately found problems with the project. The town had been without a building inspector since Steve Reno’s departure in April.
Russo Barr Associates, Inc. of Burlington is the engineering consulting firm that designed the plans to repair the senior center. Russo Barr is in charge of the construction work being done by M D M Engineering Company, Inc. of Dudley.
The company did not respond to multiple calls placed Thursday and Friday to their Burlington office.
Construction had been projected to be completed this month. Harris now says work would not begin anew until March. The center is currently in use.
The building “is currently safe for use,” Harris told the board. In response to a question by selectmen about when the work would resume, Harris said: “I hope work would resume [by] March.”
In his memorandum to selectmen Harris said the town’s building commissioner “and the state Inspector have identified numerous building code and permitting issues which have also led to identification of a number of construction and management/inspection concerns.”
Among the concerns are work done without obtaining permits, incomplete and incorrectly prepared permit applications, improper installation of roof heating, ventilation and air conditioning units and failure to provide all site visit reports, Harris told selectmen.
“The failure to check on the permits suggests negligence,” he told selectmen in the memorandum.
Most of the $561,000 repair project to replace the roof, perform structural repairs and upgrade the heating, ventilation and air conditioning system is from government block grants. Town meeting approved $100,000 for the work and to date $10,000 of that is expected to underwrite the work, Harris said.
The senior center is housed at the former Woodlawn School, built in 1924. There was an addition to the 12,000 square foot one-story wood structure in 1956. The 89 year old building was last renovated in the 1990’s.
When selectmen asked if any work might have to be re-done, Harris said: “We don’t know."
He also told selectmen the construction company often leaves the senior center a mess and fails to pick up after itself.
"Examples include. . . leaving the project site with a half doezn piles of debris sitting on the floor and pool tables, etc.," Harris wrote in his memorandum to selectmen.