By Ryan Lewis
Correspondent
JASPER, Tenn. — Marion County commissioners have seen so many problems on construction projects in the past, they hope to avoid similar troubles with the building of the new regional skills center in Kimball, Tenn.
At their June meeting, commissioners voted unanimously to hire Steve Hudson of SKH Construction Enterprises as the project’s construction manager so they would have a direct representative to oversee the day-to-day construction process.
Mr. Hudson was the only qualified contractor to express interest in the job, officials said.
“We’ve talked about whether or not we’re going to hire a construction manager for our new school for a while,” Marion County Mayor Howell Moss said. “We’ve gotten some gray hairs from building the justice center and the health department, and I guess we’ve made all the mistakes we can make with those.”
Both projects were plagued with cost-overrun problems, especially in the area of unapproved change orders.
Officials said change orders in the construction of other buildings built by the county have come with no authorization by the commission, so hiring a construction manager for this project seemed to be a practical move.
“As the construction manager, I’ll be working for the county,” Mr. Hudson said. “I’ll have no authorization to approve anything without the commissioners’ approval. I’m here to make sure there are not many, if any, change orders (on the project). If we do a good enough job on the front end, there shouldn’t be any change orders.”
Mr. Hudson’s company recently built the new Whitwell Middle School in Marion County for about $11 million, the amount it was initially budgeted without any change orders.
“To my knowledge, they’ve never had a complaint with the construction of that building,” Commissioner Thomas Thompson said.
Mr. Hudson said the master plan for the regional skills center calls for the first building to be open in the fall of 2011, and he plans on meeting that deadline.
“We all know if we hit a rock, somebody’s going to want you to pay to move it,” he said. “Sometimes things like that can’t be helped, but a construction manager will help make sure the job is done right, done on time and for as little cost as possible.”
Mr. Hudson will work for about half the normal compensation rate a construction manager would get because he said the project is very important to him and to the county.
“This school is in my heart,” he said. “The days of drawing up plans on a drafting table are over. We have so many rules and regulations to follow now. All of the permits and studies that are needed have to be done on the front end. The county needs somebody to be its eyes and ears when building something like this.”
Ryan Lewis is based in Marion County. Contact him at ryanlewis34@gmail.com.