October 28, 2020
By: Dwayne Page
Construction has ground to a halt on the new Smithville Police Department building only weeks after groundbreaking.
The contractor, Boyce Ballard Construction of Murfreesboro, stopped working after discovering unsuitable soils on the site. In some places, the ground was too soft to proceed without significant soil removal and replacement which could add an extra $100,000 to the $2.5 million project.
The question is who should address the soil problem, the city or the contractor?
The city’s position is that Boyce Ballard Construction bears the responsibility since the soil condition was identified in a geotechnical report and that the intent of the contract documents was for any unsuitable soil removal and replacement to be included in the bid and contract amount.
During a work session and special meeting last Thursday, October 22, the city’s architect Wayne Oakley of Studio Oakley Architects in Lebanon met with the mayor and aldermen to discuss the issue.
“We did hit some unsuitable soil especially along Don Cantrell Street which would be basically from (what would be) the front of the building back half way into the building”.
Reading from the geotechnical report, Oakley said “soft surface soil conditions were encountered in three of the soil test borings at depths ranging from 1 to 7 to 9 feet below the existing ground surfaces and these soil zones could potentially impact the performance of the building’s concrete slab foundation in the parking and drive areas”. The report went on to state that “we anticipate that some of these soft soils will be encountered and will require undercutting and replacement”.
“When they were first excavating our geotechnical firm was here and watched the proof roll and found they could not even put a truck on it. Normally what we do is load a tandem axel dump truck and roll it across the dirt and watch to see if there is any upheaval compressions that are made. They were afraid they would lose their truck. What we think happened that made this corner worse is the grade seemed to be a little bit high and water couldn’t get into this storm structure on Don Cantrell Street. It was probably setting under the subsurface somewhat and slowly and incrementally absorbed into the ground. We came back a couple of weeks ago and let it dry out to see if that might help the situation. We were able to roll it at that time and did find areas that were not as bad as originally thought,” said Oakley.
“We told the contractor let’s look at an on average worst case scenario based upon what we saw and what was in the geotechnical report. We had three feet of undercut in the lower corner and then in the sally port area it reduced to 18 inches and when we got further back into the building it reduced to 12 inches and then to zero. We had them put a price tag on undercutting that and bringing in shot rock fill and that was near the $100,000 mark. Our intent and what we believe is in our contract documents is that the contractor is supposed to pick up all that,” said Oakley.
“That bid they (contractor) gave included all ground and excavation work. To me they should be paying for that. They are the experts. The mayor and the city council are not. My theory is they saw the geotechnical report which speaks of that (soft soils) in there so their engineers should have examined that and said this is what it is going to cost us to do this job,” said City Attorney Vester Parsley.
“We have been trying to find solutions. We talked with the structural engineer about the amount of loads it would take. The project is considered to be a lightly loaded building. In other words we don’t have massive point loads coming down in certain areas or mass weight on load bearing walls. We asked the contractor to look at on average under the building area only 18 inches of cut. We’d come back with a geo grid underneath that. Basically that’s a fabric which helps to disperse loads out. On the sally port area we would still have to do an 18 inch cut. We did ask for unit prices for unsuitable soil, mass rock and trench rock. I do that on every project. I want to know if we hit something else what we are going to pay. We gave them a new diagram to go by so we are still waiting for that information to come back,” said Oakley.
Since the meeting, Oakley has sent the following letter to Boyce Ballard stating the city’s position and asking them to proceed with the construction.
“Mr. Boyce, at their special called City Council Meeting on October 22, 2020, the City of Smithville, City Council, Mayor Josh Miller, City Attorney Vester Parsley and I discussed the current situation with the unsuitable soil conditions at the under construction City of Smithville Police Department”.
“Upon review of the Bid and Contract Documents, it is our belief the intent of the Contract Documents was for any unsuitable soil removal and replacement to be included in the Bid and Contract amount. Therefore, the City of Smithville will not take any financial obligation for the removal and replacement of the unsuitable soil”.
“The City is requesting that construction resume without delay and without additional cost to the City of Smithville. It is understood there has been a substantial delay with the construction as solutions have been researched. Time lost up to Monday October 26, 2020 will not be held against the allotted construction time as specified in the Contract. Please let us know if there are any questions and we look forward to a successful completion of the project. Sincerely, Wayne Oakley, AIA, NCARB Studio Oakley Architects, LLC,” the letter concluded.
Mayor Josh Miller said he looks forward to the soil issue being solved so that the construction can resume to completion.