Special Bd. of Aldermen — 11/26/2018 Page 10
| have reviewed, probably the only public person that did, not being a member of the Board or the Steering
Committee, | reviewed all 12 proposals for A&E services. | reviewed all 11 proposals for the construction
manager and | have reviewed the one and only proposal for the operating service Spectacle Management. |
attended, you saw me there, sitting on the side like a fly on the wall, six bidder interviews for A&E services, all
the six. Your three bidder interviews for construction manager all bidders are qualified in my opinion and I’ve
got construction experience, some obviously more than others. Now what interested me was the cost, the very
reason you are here, cost. That is what bonds are all about, cost. The $15.5 million dollars in case you’ve
forgotten is $2 million dollars for land purchase; there is $1 million dollars for design; there is $1 million dollars
for staging and audio visual equipment, after all it is a performance theatre, not just a building; and $11.5
million dollars for construction The memorandum written by Tim Cummings and presented by Duncan Webb.
| tried to dig into this $11.5 million. You know something, | never could find the rationale, | never could find a
spread sheet on it.
| did find, when | did the Right to Know Law request from Mr. Cummings through the City Clerk, | found that
Fennessy Consulting had been hired by Duncan Webb to do costing for this project, they were paid to do
costing for this project. Guess what they came up with in detailed spread sheets, for Main Street, also for
Court Street and for this new building on Spring Street, guess what they come up with for this project on Main
Street? $16.4 million dollars, $16.4. $16.4 million dollars, | can show you the spread sheets, in fact if you
want me to, Ill e-mail you the spread sheets, in fact | will e-mail you the spread sheets. What would happen
then, this was never made public, | got the sheets because | asked through the Right to Know Law.
Then what happened is that Alderman McCarthy who was very much involved, went to Harvey Construction,
Harvey does a lot of work for the City for the schools and asked Harvey Construction if they could look at
Fennessy’s estimates at no cost. Guess what Harvey come up with? $15 million dollars. When | asked them
and I’ve talked to Harvey, I’ve talked to the Vice President, | said “what is this based on”. He said “We made a
comparison from the Boston Market, Fennessy’s of Boston’s organization and the New Hampshire Labor
market and we figured we’d take a reduction, that’s how they came up with $15 million.
Then McCarthy went back to them and said “Il want you to descope, we don’t do much on the interior, we don’t
raise the roof, we use the mechanical, cut the cost down” and they came up with an estimate of $10.5 million. |
asked Bernier, what is the validity behind it? And he says, “Well it’s really not very valid because you are
asked to do things that couldn’t possibly build a theatre with’. So what you are left with is a $16.4 million dollar
estimate to do the job and a $15 million dollar to do that job. Certainly not this magical $11.5 million dollars
that Tim Cummings come up with that he never backed up. |’ll stop in a minute and ask Mr. Cummings if
you’ve ever backed it up with a spread sheet.
Mr. Cummings
| would. | don’t know if makes sense for me to comment now or wait until Mr. Teeboom is done with all his
comments in its totality so | can respond to them.
Mr. Teeboom Ok that’s acceptable. Now the original design, well the final design by Duncan Webb in
summary for this Performance Theatre, is 550 tiered seating, like Cinemagic tiered seating, 550 tiered seating,
500 table seatings, tables on a flat surface, you have to be able to bring the staging down to a flat surface and
a thousand standing. People today they wave and they stand you know I’ve seen it, waving, stomping, in
unison, thousand. That was a design and the second floor up, the second floor up because the downtown
merchants who paid for these studies of Duncan Webb through parking meter fees called Downtown
improvement funds, insisted on having retail space on the bottom floor. That is the design currently, lots of
proposals there is no other design right now on the table.
So | should also mention that in the list that Fennessy prepared in the detailed spread sheet here are some
exclusions, quite a few exclusions in fact, one of them is no hazardous material. And we found out through the
