Nov. 15, 2017 | Midwestern State University | thewichitan.com | Your Campus. Your News. | Vol. 82 No. 12
PHOTOS BY SARA KEELING AND HARLIE DAVID | THE WICHITAN
Marilyn Fowle, vice president of administration and finance, discusses financial policies with Board members at the Nov. 10 meeting. University President Suzanne Shipley talks at the Board meeting Nov. 9.
Health sciences building cost raises concern KARA MCINTYRE EDITOR
K
yle Owen, associate vice president for facilities services, presented his report to the Board of Regents on the status of the new health sciences and human services building — and the cost was a bit more than he expected. On Nov. 9, Owen announced that the October bids for the new building were about $7.5 million over budget. He said the coastal hurricanes increased the demand for construction, pushing costs up from the original $30 million estimated. “He really concentrated on wanting to
7.5 mil
preserve the interior for the students, so he looked at modifying the exterior to be able to save the dollars,” Owen said in the meeting. “One of the things we’ll end up having to eliminate is this large eastern face. We will still end up having glass, but it’ll include more MSU brick.” The four-story atrium also had its own issues. According to Owen, it’s expensive to do this, so the solution was to downsize it to two stories with the benefit of about 5,000 square feet of additional collaboration space for student use. He also suggested eliminating part of a terra cotta wall from the west entrance and replace it with either stucco or MSU brick and eliminating the penthouse floor/peaked
Amount that the Oct. bids were over budget.
roof feature, one of the glass walls on the east side and the colonnade on the south side. “We [the contractors and I] will meet as a group the Tuesday after Thanksgiving to review the changes. At that point, we expect them to have about $4.5 million to $5 million in savings identified,” Owen said. “If they do, we’ll ask them to go ahead and move forward. If we still aren’t at that level, then unfortunately our only option is to go in and redesign and rebid.” A completely new redesign would add six months to the construction timeline, but Owen said he doesn’t think it’ll come to that. Even with this, there will still be a small delay in construction — he predicted late January
$4.5-$5 mil Expected savings from contractor.
as the earliest date for an actual price contract. “The glass is half full. I think we’ll get there. I spoke with the contractor and he thinks there are some more drastic things he could do to save some more money, but he’s still looking in the $4.5 million to $5 million range,” Owen said. University President Suzanne Shipley and several Board members voiced their concerns, including Sam Sanchez, chairman; R. Caven Crosnoe, vice chairman; F. Lynwood Givens. “It’s going to look very different than what we’re seeing [here]. We’re talking about 20 to 25 percent variation,” Givens said. “I don’t
see REGENTS pg. 3
$38 mil Original estimated cost for building.