County zeroing in on firm for new hospital design

County zeroing in on firm for new hospital design

Groundbreaking for Baptist site July 21

new@theeveningtimes.com

The county has narrowed the list of potential architects to design the new Baptist hospital down to three and are anticipating breaking ground on July 21.

County Attorney Joe Rogers updated the Quorum Court this week about the hospital’s status and said they reviewed the qualifications of four design firms and have ranked the top three to pick from.

“We are in the process of employing an architect,” Rogers said. “We’ve ranked them. And the way the law reads is that once you have ranked them, then you try to negotiate with the No. 1 ranked firm.”

Earl Swensson Associates of Nashville was the top ranked firm followed by Evans-Taylor-Foster-Childress (ETFC) of Memphis and Paul-Kim-Monica (PKM) Architects.

“We have to go through that process and that’s where we are now,” Rogers said.

Baptist Memorial Health Care is proposing to build a new $25 million, 50,000 square foot facility that will have 15 to 20 beds.

The cost to build the new hospital is being supported by a one cent sales tax which voters approved that will generate $30 million over the next five years.

Baptist is the largest private health care provider in the region with over 2,000 beds. The $2 billion nonprofit health care system operates 14 hospitals in Arkansas, Tennessee and Mississippi and has over 4,500 affiliated physicians.

Its flagship hospital is the 750 bed Baptist Memorial in Memphis.

The new hospital will fill the void left when Crittenden Regional Hospital declared bankruptcy and closed in August 2014.

Rogers said ESA specializes in hospital design.

Justice Vickie Robertson asked Rogers why the Quorum Court had not been included in the selection process.

“I thought the Quorum Court was going to review qualifications before they selected one,” Robertson said.

According to Rogers, the court was represented on the committee by Justice Ronnie Sturch and County Treasurer Charlie Suiter.

“That still doesn’t answer my question,” Robertson said. “I thought in our agreement the Quorum Court was supposed to get a chance to review them.”

“I wasn’t aware of that,” Rogers said.

“I though that’s why we put Ronnie (Sturch) on there,” Justice Ronnie Marconi

added.

Rogers said the next step it so send out requests for qualifications to hire a construction manager which they expect to do next week.

“We are going to use an architect and a construction manager agency,” Rogers said. “We have to go through a list of qualifications and then you go over them and rank them one, two, three and then you negotiate with one.”

Rogers said they had hoped to use a construction management at risk method but found out that they are required by Arkasas law to use a construction agency management approach which takes longer.

The construction manager at risk is a method which involves hiring a construction manager to deliver the project within a guaranteed maximum price based on construction documents and specifications.

Agency construction management is a fee-based service which a construction manager is responsible exclusively to the own — Baptist — and acts in the owner’s interests throughout each stage of he project.

An agency construction manager also does not contract with subcontractors.

“We were hoping we could do at-risk,” said County Judge Woody Wheeless.

“But Arkansas’s constitution won’t allow it. That would have allowed us to put it on the fast track and have the building in 18 months. When they get even the partial plans they could have bid the slab work and dirt work out and got that work going. But now we are having to wait until we have everything completed before we can put those bids out. So it is complicated when you are dealing with the government and taxpayer dollars and a private entity.”

Rogers said once they get the architect on board and then the construction manager, then they will go through the process of putting together a budget.

“It gets complicated,” Rogers said. “You go through the process of getting a budget because the way our contract with Baptist reads is if it comes in overbudget, they can withdraw from the contract.

“It’s even further complicated because we have a bond process,” Rogers continued. “You can’t issue bonds until you have an agreed contract in place.

You really can’t know what your budget is until you have your architect and construction managers on board because they work hand in hand, then draft the plans. Then you come up Flood

with a budget.

“When you have a construction

manager at risk, it

is kind of like a general contractor. They can come up with the numbers quicker because if you go the other route, you have to hire subs, and they don’t know what the numbers are until they get the subs. The architect says it can delay it six months.”

Wheeless said they still anticipate a groundbreaking on July 21 and a finish date in Jan. 2018.

By Mark Randall