CDI Contractors Out of Creekside Community Center Project

Cost projections of some of the major portions of the project were, “unreasonable and don’ t meet reality,” according to Mitch Magness.  

Harrison Chief of City Operations, Wade Phillips, said it was the city that chose to remove CDI Contractors from the Creekside Community Center Project.

CDI Contractors were slated to be the construction manager for the indoor aquatic facility and the remodel of the remaining junior high school building. “CDI Contractors will no longer be involved with the project going forward,” Phillips said in an email to the Harrison City Council earlier this week.

Phillips gave no details in the email as to why this decision was made but he and others discussed it during the Thursday night city council meeting. He said while he doesn’t want to speak ill of CDI, “we reached a point where they were no longer the best fit for this project to work with our team.”

Phillips said, “We had a lot of questions and ultimately those questions weren’t well received. Which that response as then conversely not well received. In our last meeting with CDI it was clear that, that was a team that was not going to work going forward.”

Cost projections of some of the major portions of the project were, “unreasonable and don’ t meet reality,” according to Mitch Magness.  

“Ultimately where we couldn’t trust it was, we checked with other contractors, we checked with our local tradespeople on some of the numbers we were seeing for electrical items, for plumbing, for HVAC which was big one. We couldn’t get to their numbers,” Philips said. He said they looked at other aquatics centers, like the one in Russellville, that was completed in 2019, and added what he called “ridiculous escalator’s” to their numbers and failed come within 30% of the projections. He said increases of 40% and 50% were added and they failed to come within $100 a square foot of CDI’s projections.

Phillips acknowledged they are dealing with a difficult construction market but said, “The last thing I want to do is start cutting stuff or start shrinking stuff and get to the end and realize we didn’t have to do that.”

Phillips had previously suggested awarding the affected phases to the contractors that came in second when the project was put out to bid. He reassured the council that changing contractors will have no affect on the design process.

Mayor Jerry Jackson added how thankful he is to have City Financial Officer Luke Feightert on this project because of his experience in touring other aquatic facilities elsewhere saying, “he understands what you need and what you don’ t need.” Magness added, “the specifics that Luke was referring to, he knew the numbers dead on.”

Jackson said they are fortunate to have cut CDI out now because the numbers they presented would have ruined everything the rest of the way.

The council voted unanimously in favor of a change in contractor. Now the remodel of the remaining junior high school building and gymnasium will be offered to Butch May Construction who has already been awarded the contract for construction of the new gymnasium. The aquatics facility will be offered to Van Horn Construction in Russellville.