Source: http://www.meadvilletribune.com, June 29, 2017
By: Keith Gushard
Crawford County has reached a financial settlement with its architectural firm for errors involving additional site work costs at the former Talon Inc. property and the county having to buy a high density file storage system for the new judicial center.
County commissioners Wednesday unanimously approved an agreement totaling $75,000 in cash and credits with Weber Murphy Fox, its architectural firm for both issues. Tribune attempts to reach Dick Fox of Weber Murphy Fox for comment Wednesday were unsuccessful.
The two sides have been in negotiations for the past several months.
Under the agreement, the county gets $35,000 in cash from Weber Murphy Fox within 30 days to settle the site work issue at the former Talon Inc. The county also receives $15,000 in cash from Weber Murphy Fox within 30 days to settle the storage system issue plus receive a $25,000 credit toward future invoices sent by Weber Murphy Fox to Crawford County for architectural/engineering services done by the company.
Under the agreement, neither the county nor Weber Murphy Fox are admitting liability for the errors that took place.
“I think it was a fair adjustment,” Francis Weiderspahn Jr., chairman of the board of commissioners, said following the vote.
In April, the county set up a $400,000 escrow account between the county and Calamar Enterprises Inc., the proposed buyer of 4.5 acres of the county owned former Talon Inc. site on upper Pine Street. The escrow account is to cover additional costs toward making the site ready for development.
Calamar, a Wheatfield, N.Y., real estate development firm, wants to build a 128-unit independent senior housing complex on the site. Additional subsurface material and debris from Talon Inc. buildings previously on the site must be removed before Calamar would build.
“Some of the (foundation) materials were not crushed to contract specifications,” Commissioner Chris Soff said following the vote. “Some of the materials left there are ones that should not have been left there — wire and that kind of thing. Weber Murphy Fox was overseer of those projects. That’s what precipitated the escrow agreement being approved.”
The cost of additional site preparation work is unknown at this point.
Under an amended sales agreement between the county and Calamar approved in April, the county gets $660,000 from Calamar if the deal goes forward. However, $400,000 of the $660,000 payment will be put into an escrow account to cover removal of material and debris. If those costs are less than $400,000, the county will get the balance of the escrow account. If the cost is higher than $400,000, Calamar will pay the difference.
The second part of the settlement agreement covers a design error related to filing cabinets for the Clerk of Courts Office in the new judicial center.
In March, the county spent $99,990.01 to buy three multi-shelved motorized filing cabinets for the Clerk of Courts Office because the current ones within the office at the courthouse are too tall to move into the new building.
The two current cabinets in the office are about 6 inches taller than the ceiling height in the new judicial center building. Three cabinets are needed to get the same amount of storage space as the two current cabinets.
The flaw was discovered this spring during preparations for moving the Clerk of Courts Office to the new building. The new judicial center’s initial design went from three floors to four, but the building’s overall height was kept the same.
“They (Weber Murphy Fox) are not covering the full cost of new machines, which I think is reasonable since the one machine (that would have moved) is over 20 years old,” Weiderspahn said.