By Patrick Adrian
EAGLE TIMES STAFF
NEWPORT — The Sullivan County delegation will seek a new construction estimate on the county’s proposed plan for the Sullivan County nursing home renovation, after determining that a less expensive project would be impractical.
The delegation, a body composed of the county’s 13 elected state representatives, voted unanimously, with two members absent, on Thursday to appropriate $195,000 from the county’s capital reserve fund to update the current architectural design and put the project out to bid. The appropriation includes $55,000 to acquire a project cost estimate prior to seeking contract bids.
Rep. Brian Sullivan (D-Plainfield) said a pre-bidding estimate would provide the county more time to research financing options and better inform the delegation about the cost expectations.
“We don’t want to be in the position again of bidding out the project and then getting a surprise [about the cost],” Sullivan said. “The pre-bidding estimate is designed to provide us with knowledge upfront before the bidding happens [and] provides us the ability to look at bonding options while the bidding is going on.”
Thursday’s decision, while still not guaranteeing the delegation will fund the costly renovation, put the project back on track. The vote indicates that the delegates, after exploring a number of alternatives, now accept the county’s proposal as the best option.
For over a year the delegation had been at a standstill to fund an extensive renovation of the county’s 156-bed nursing home, whose aging infrastructure is in critical condition and whose living units no longer comply with modern federal standards. The county’s proposal, based on a contracted design by the Concord firm, Warrenstreet Architects, was last estimated to cost $54 million. The proposed project would replace the oldest building in the nursing home complex with a modern and energy-efficient building that meets modern federal standards for assisted living facilities, creates more spaces for visitations and social gatherings and maximizes overall operating efficiency.
In July 2021, the delegates voted 10-1 to form a five-member ad-hoc committee to study the feasibility of a less expensive project, one with a targeted cost of $34 million. The committee, composed of four delegates — two Democrats and two Republicans — and County Commissioner Chair George Hebert, met six times during August and September, including with the former project contractors from Warrenstreet Architects and Milestone Construction, of Concord.
Te committee presented their findings to the delegation on Thursday, in which they recommended supporting the county’s proposed project.
The committee Chair Brian Sullivan (D-Plainfield) said that a $35 million project, though “technically possible,” would be financially counterproductive and impractical to the county’s needs for care.
According to the committee’s report, the contractors said the only way to build a $35 million project would be to significantly reduce the facility’s number of beds. Modern federal standards for care facilities require bedrooms to have a resident-to-bathroom ratio of 2:1 and that every bed has a window. According to the contractors, the extensive construction needed to replace the facility’s infrastructure would trigger the federal requirements to comply with these standards, Sullivan explained.
The contractors estimated that a $35 million project would require a reduction of at least 67 beds, according to the committee report. Such a reduction of beds would result in millions of dollars in lost revenue while yielding limited savings in staff reductions, as the staffing is based on a ratio of staff per bed grouping rather than the total number of residents.
As an example of the revenue impact, a 48 bed reduction would equate to a revenue loss of over $3.1 million in the first year and a “substantial” cumulative loss over the next 29 years, the committee reported.
Additionally, the cost to start a new, less expensive project would offset a considerable portion of the savings, the committee found. Based on current construction trends, construction costs are estimated to increase annually between 5% to 10%.
Sullivan said that a new project, with a new design, would push back construction at least another 12 to 18 months.
“What we’ve come to understand is that time truly is money,” Sullivan said. “And when you delay, escalation happens. So in regard to those 12 to 18 months, those windows would have money attached to them.”
As one cost-saving measure, the committee has recommended deferring a number of proposed improvements to the McConnell building. These improvements included aesthetic renovations to the lobby; the construction of a small convenience store; new spaces for visitations; and socialization; and the relocation of county offices from Newport to Unity.
“This was intended to be one of the last [phases] in the project anyway,” Sullivan explained. “If, for any reason, we are seeing cost overruns, McConnell is something we can put on hold for a later date as a separate project. If we are running well under budget, we might [decide] . . . to take advantage and move ahead with it.”
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