Manassas booted city hall employees, then sought construction bids, costs up 40%

Questions flew Monday about why costs to renovate Manassas City Hall rose so quickly and why the city emptied the building before knowing how much renovations would cost.

It will cost $12.2 million to gut and overhaul the city’s municipal office at 9027 Center Street, installing new systems from top to bottom — electrical wiring, HVAC, elevators, and new windows, to name a few. The City Council will hold a work session at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, September 29, to determine how to pay for the cost increase.

Last year, the city estimated the cost would not exceed $8.5 million. However, rising construction and labor costs drove up the price.

The city began moving staff out of City Hall into other local government offices and in rented office space in Downtown Manassas in January. It waited to solicit bids for the project until July to ask contractors to submit them.

Scott Horan, the city’s public works director, said he waited for architects to draw up renovation plans for the building, which took nine months. Theoretically, Horan said, having employees out of the building would speed up construction time after approved designs.

Several changes to the designs delayed them, said City Manager Patrick Pate. When the bids came back, there was only a $200,000 difference between the lowest and highest bid. “When we saw the bids, the costs told us this was an indication of where the market was,” said Horan.

We reported on the rising costs earlier this month. Horan also blamed the City Council’s planned summer recess in July as a reason why the City Council is only now hearing about higher costs projections.

Horan also oversees the construction of a $42 million police station on Grant Avenue slated to open next year, a $6 million expansion of the city’s museum that just began, and the city hall renovation.

“We’ve bitten off more than we can chew,” said Councilwoman Lynn Forkell Greene. “Asking citizens to continue absorbing the increases will not sit well at this time.”

Horan said he cut $600,000 from the project after a “value” engineering review in recent weeks. Those cuts mean the renovated building will be less energy efficient as LEED “Basic” instead of “Silver,” but would still meet the city’s needs for the next quarter century.

Councilman Mark Wolfe asked for additional cuts to the project, such as not completing a planned renovation of the building’s exterior. Forkell Greene also suggested leaving the existing windows in place.

Pate said the city could fund the higher renovation cost by tapping into the city funds reserved for rainy days and using up to $10 million in coronavirus bailout funds the Federal Government gave to the city last year. Either option would spare the taxpayers from receiving higher tax bills next year to fund the project.

The Council did not vote on the matter. Horan and other contractors who spoke Monday urged the Council to forge ahead with the project, warning that the rising cost of skilled labor would consume the cost savings that could be achieved by pressing pause.

Many contractors in the Washington, D.C. region cannot fill key construction jobs, which also drives up construction costs.

As of June, the city had more than $180 million in planned capital improvement projects. A $95 million replacement for Dean Elementary School, where the City Council is temporarily holding meetings while renovations are underway on City Hall, is one of the most costly.

Pate told the Council the city’s staff would review all pending capital improvement projects in the wake of inflated costs.

The building opened in 1987 when the Manassas City Government had 227 employees and a population of about 20,000. Today, the city employs more than 500 people at various locations and has more than doubled in population.

The plans to renovate the city hall include providing more public meeting space on the first floor and using open areas, such as the large hallways that consumed a lot of space in the original building.

Construction is behind schedule, was supposed to begin in April 2022, and take about 12 months to complete.