Council approves change order for Criminal Justice Center roof

Brooks Wallace addresses the council on the CJC roof replacement

At Tuesday night’s meeting of the Picayune City Council, Brooks Wallace of Dungan Engineering, representing the city engineer’s office, informed the council that a change order will be coming in the form of a budget amendment at the next meeting of the council.

This request is in regards to the roof replacement project that is currently underway on the Picayune Criminal Justice Center.

Photos provided by Dungan Engineering

Wallace explained that during the design of the roof replacement project, they performed some preliminary testing that determined that approximately 15 to 20 percent of the old roof sub-structure would need to be replaced. Once the contractor arrived on site and began the work, Wallace said it was determined there was a lot more than that needing removal and replacement.

“What we are now finding is that the lightweight concrete is wet and is coming up with shovels and it is not suitable to cover back up,” Wallace shared.

Wallace said that they had anticipated replacement of some of it in the bid, but he now believes that the replacement of all the concreate may be needed. He pointed out that some of the existing conduit is not reusable and will most likely be replaced as well.

Wallace pointed out that not replacing the subsurface concrete will create more problems long term. He told the council that the cost to repair the structure would around $10.00 per square foot, while replacement would be approximately $5.00 per square foot.

The amount needed for the adjustment is around $60,000.00, which will bring the total estimated cost of the project to around $290,000.00. Wallace pointed out that with this change order, they replaced the roof subsurface all the way down to the structural concrete which in essence means the roof will be completely replaced at all levels.

Jonathan Hickman of Dungan Engineering added some additional insight on the project. Hickman said that when the project is completed, three new roof air conditioners will be installed, and the two units that will not be replaced, are all less than three years old.

Wallace said the new roof comes with a 20 year weathertight warranty which means that should the roof leak, the contractor will repair it.

The council approved the request by a unanimous vote.