12/8/07 - County awards $605,500 in courthouse bids

Project’s second phase will renovate law library space on the building’s third floor

(As published by Cortland Standard, Even Geibel reporting)

The county Legislature awarded the bids for Phase II of the County Courthouse renovation project Thursday, and the total price should be about $605,000.

The Legislature also approved a supplemental space needs study for the County Office Building, not to exceed a price of $20,000.

Both measures had been passed by a joint meeting of the Budget and Finance Committee and General Services Committee preceding the special legislative session Thursday night.

The bid for general construction was awarded to Bellows Construction Specialties of Syracuse for $367,500; heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems were awarded to Petcosky and Sons of Binghamton for $112,895; and the bid for electrical was awarded to Ithacor Management of Cortland for $110,300.

The final bid for the plumbing has not been awarded to a specific firm, but rather to the “lowest bidder licensed to do business within the city of Cortland at the time work is to be performed.”
County Administrator Scott Schrader said plumbers are required to be licensed to perform work in the city and that the $8,000 lowest bidder, Daniel J. D’Amico Plumbing and Heating of Geneva, was not licensed and was not interested in becoming licensed in Cortland.

The next lowest bidder, Petcosky and Sons at $14,600, is in the process of becoming licensed in the city.

The county has $957,000 budgeted for the work, but Schrader told the legislators that only about $350,000 would fall to the county, the rest being picked up by the state Office of Court Administration.

Phase II would have to be substantially completed in March, at the end of the state’s fiscal year, in order to qualify for the state funding.

Russ Oechsle, district executive for the Sixth Judicial District Administrative Office, told the Legislature that after 10 years of discussion and five years of design work, the state was expecting these renovations to last for the expected 15 years. The last substantial renovations were completed in the 1980s and Oechsle characterized them as “extremely successful.”

“We tend to try to do long-term planning on the facilities,” Oechsle told the legislators.