Last fall, the county board gave the Cook County Hockey Association the go-ahead to pursue pre-design work for a recreation building that could be used as a field house for multiple sports that take place on county land just west of Cook County High School. The budget they were given was $5,000. The amount requested by the architect is considerably more.
The hockey association worked with The Meyer Group, a Duluthbased architectural firm, to come up with a building that would include bathrooms, locker rooms, a common area, a concession booth, a garage, and storage for numerous sport groups. The design it came up with— and the associated cost of at least $700,000—was more than the county board had envisioned.
On January 30, Meyer Group Principal Architect Tim Meyer wrote to Cook County Community Center Director Diane Booth, saying, “As you know, we have exceeded the contract amount for the pre-design work we performed for the recreation building for Cook County. Our original agreement was for three design options with no revisions included. In the interest of assisting the county in moving the design proposal ahead, we performed work that was greatly beyond the scope of work and time included in our original proposal.
“So we are therefore asking the county commission to assist us in covering our expenses involved with performing the revision work. As this additional work was not specifically authorized by the county commission, we are only asking that some of our addition[al] cost be covered. The remainder we will absorb in good faith as we are committed to assisting the county move the community center project forward.”
Meyer states that he decided to keep moving ahead with the project in order to avoid slowing the process down. “As you know,” he wrote, “our original agreement was for $5,000 plus reimbursable expenses. With the revisions included we realized over $16,000 worth of time per our standard billing rates.” He said he would have absorbed the cost if The Meyer Group were hired to make architectural and engineering plans for the proposed recreation building. The county board has not made a decision about what to do because its new community center plans for the same general vicinity are still up in the air.
The original proposal from The Meyer Group was to provide three interior plan sketches, three exterior concept sketches, an opinion of the probable cost for each option, and attendance at one review meeting in Grand Marais for $5,000 plus travel expenses. The company’s hourly rates range from $50 an hour for clerical work and $75 for a graphic designer to $90 an hour for a project manager and $150 for a principal architect.
“Looking at the actual architectural plans,” Commissioner Jan Hall said, “there’s not a whole lot there for $16,000.”
“I have a huge problem with this,” said Commissioner Sue Hakes. “He said he spent $16,000 instead of 5. That’s ridiculous. You can’t just come back and say, ‘Oops, I spent triple.’” She said that she expected the bill to initially be sent to ORB Management, the county’s owner’s rep, for review and said that if they wanted to be paid for extra service, they should have obtained written preapproval.
The board did not take official action authorizing payment at this time.
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