On September 3, the Washington County Board of Commissioners approved changes to plans for the new Wildwood Library.

The county has been working with HCM Architects for the past two years to design the library. The project involves demolition of the current Wildwood Library to replace it with a new building on the same site.

As the design process moved forward, additional services were requested of the architectural team to explore alternative design options for renovation or reuse of the existing building, perform a wetlands and tree survey of the existing site, design a storm drain from the site’s retention basis to County Road 12, and complete additional design and design engineering services that were not included in the initial contract scope.

The cost of these additional services is $140,933. Some of these additional costs will be paid for by the City of Mahtomedi, who is a partner on the project.

The County Board also made changes to the contract with Kraus-Anderson for construction management of the project. Adjustments are needed to the contract now that the full scope of the project has been finalized and approved. The adjustments are budgeted for and were anticipated. The adjustments included:

• The addition of items needed to complete the construction process that are not a part of the final building product, such as construction dumpsters, temporary restrooms, perimeter construction fencing, temporary heat and building enclosures, and job site trailers and equipment.
• An adjustment of the construction management fee based on the additional size and scope of the project. This fee is based on a percentage of construction costs. The original contract was based on construction costs of $3,850,000, and the final approved construction costs are $5,062,234.
• An adjustment of construction management service costs. The original contract pricing provided a discount based on the Wildwood Library project and Park Grove Library project being constructed at the same time. Because the Park Grove project has been postponed, efficiencies were lost and the pricing is being adjusted to reflect the cost of services only at Wildwood Library. 

The total cost of these contract adjustments is $105,051. The contract amendments are funded by 2019 bonds.

 Construction is taking place now, and the library is scheduled for completion next summer.