Remediation costs for Verizon building in Conshohocken cut by state grant

By Carl Rotenberg crotenberg@21st-centurymedia.com @CarlWriter on Twitter

The $480,307 Industrial Sites Reuse Program grant will largely subsidize the $722,956 remediation cost to remove the outside and interior walls, asbestos contamination and old equipment. Borough officials have been converting the closed building from a Class C, non-functioning, out-of-date facility into a Class A office to be used as the new borough complex.

Im very happy we were able to get it, said Councilwoman Anita Barton, representing Ward 4 where the borough office will be located. It is a help for us financially.

Barton said that the remediation costs went up slightly because they had discovered a little more asbestos in the building in the summertime.

You cant just go into a building and assume it is safe, Barton said. We had to be sure the building would be safe.

On Oct. 27, workers at the construction site were installing metal wall studs between the concrete floors and ceilings on the first and second floors of the building. The building is surrounded by an 8-foot chain-link fence faced with green fabric to obscure the construction site from sidewalk observers. The upper floors are visible from Fayette Street and Fourth Avenue.

The grant application for the Conshohocken project was received by state officials in August 2014, said Lyndsay Kensinger, a DCED spokesperson. There have been no other ISRP grant projects awarded in Montgomery County so far this year, she said.

In September, borough council borrowed $10,781,000 from two banks to pay for the construction costs. The annual debt service will start at $312,619 in 2015 and increase to $719,766 per year in the subsequent 24 years of the loans. Borough officials said the $719,766 in annual debt service would be decreased by eliminating the annual $240,000 that the borough currently pays for its office rental at 1 W. First Ave. The borough also expects to receive about $225,000 per year when all of the 20,000 square feet of rental space is occupied in the new borough office building.

Council awarded a $10,497,600 basic bid to TN Ward Co. of Lower Merion on Sept. 3 along with alternate bid items that brought the total cost of construction $10,709,600. The alternate bids include a vegetative tray system on the main roof for $103,500; a screen for the rooftop mechanical systems for $46,500; a six-panel, closed-loop solar hot-water array for a $38,500; an upgrade in the rubber roof thickness from 0.06 inch to 0.09 inch for $13,500; and a ground face cement block rather than split face for $10,000.

Borough Engineer Paul Hughes had recommended eliminating a $713,000 alternate for a second entrance on Fourth Avenue that included site work, structures, stairs, exterior envelope, interior re-configuration and the associated mechanical, electrical, plumbing and fire protection elements. Continued...

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Remediation costs for Verizon building in Conshohocken cut by state grant