Boldt Construction of Cloquet was picked over two other strong candidates to be the construction manager of the proposed $20 million Cook County North Shore Hospital/Care Center remodel project.
The hospital board met in a special meeting on July 31 and met with two Boldt representatives, Kirk Ilenda, director of business development, and Shelly Peterson, vice president and general manager of Minnesota operations, to ask some final questions before making its decision.
Boldt Construction is a 125-year-old family-owned company that has offices nationwide. It specializes in technical services, construction and consulting services. Current Northland projects include overseeing the building of a $12 million cancer center for Memorial Medical Center in Ashland and renovation for the hospital in Moose Lake. They are also working on a large expansion of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
According to Peterson, Boldt has become one of the nation’s premier health and wellness construction services.
“We know the delivery of healthcare cannot stop for construction. Our planning and field personnel are experts at designing and implementing special processes, in collaboration with the owner, to allow patient care to continue without interruption,” said Peterson.
Rebecca Lewis and John Geisler of DSGW architects will work with Boldt on the remodel and renovation of the 16-bed critical access hospital and 37-bed skilled nursing center.
Boldt will pick a project manager to oversee the project, but the board was very concerned that any project manager selected would come with a lot of experience.
They currently have 23 project managers to select from, said Peterson.
“We will pick someone who has extensive remodel experience, someone who has extensive phasing experience. You won’t be getting a guy off of the street that doesn’t have any experience,” she said.
The project manager will work to set up the preconstruction phase with Rory Smith, the hospital/care center maintenance facilities manager. Once construction begins he or she will be on site one to two days per week.
Boldt will also select a field engineer and superintendent who will be onsite daily during the entire project.
“The superintendent will be your [the hospital board and hospital administration] boots on the ground. He or she will be your eyes, ears, the person you rely on for change orders,” said Peterson.
Another question the board had concerned hiring local help. “Will local contractors get any work from this?” asked Board President Tom Spence.
“We want to work with local contractors. We ran into this at Moose Lake. Some of the bigger contractors can get smaller local contractors under their bonding. We can break out projects that can be done by a local contractor. We will figure if it is possible or not possible to work with them,” Peterson said.
AgStar Financial Services representative Bob Madsen was also at the meeting. AgStar has been assisting the board and administration in finding bonding for this project. When asked by Hospital/ Care Center Administrator Kimber Wraalstad if his company had any experience working with Boldt, Madsen responded, “We have had a lot of experience working with them, and every experience we have had with Boldt has been good.”
“We want this project to be as successful as you do,” Peterson said.
With that, hospital board members Sharon Bloomquist, Justin Mueller, Howard Abrahamson, Kay Olson and Tom Spence Sr. voted to hire Boldt.
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