Berrien County Commissioners are about to get the ball rolling on $15.8 million in building projects. The board has hired Bacchiocchi Construction, to help it prioritize construction and maintenance work as the list of needs exceeds the funds available to complete everything. Commissioners were told last week a breakdown of all projects divides them into five categories of importance, with one through three being the most important. Commissioner Jim Curran told colleagues Thursday a resolution is coming soon to seek bids for those three categories.
“However, bidding should include scope classes one through five in an effort to find economies of scale,” Curran said. “In other words, if they’re on item number three, but item number five would be a companion and we could save money by doing that, we’re basically saying do it.”
Those three categories are life and safety, code violations, and deferred maintenance. The county is seeking to lock in contracts on these projects in case the federal government pulls back some COVID funds because they haven’t been spent yet. The projects include everything from sidewalk and parking lot work at animal control to bulletproof doors at the courthouse to window replacements at the jail.
