Millions Miscalculated On Mt Kisco Firehouses Project Costs

MOUNT KISCO, NY — Village officials are seething about errors made by the architectural firm they hired for their big renovation and expansion plan for Mount Kisco's firehouses. Those errors underestimated the cost by at least $2 million (they still don't know the full extent).

That means the $10.25 million voters approved borrowing to fund the project will not cover the work described in the original plan.

H2M architects + engineers of Melville, New York is the firm that made the errors. It sounds less like a calculation problem than one of the garbage-in-garbage-out variety.

Rich Humann, CEO of H2M architects + engineers, sent Patch this statement:

H2M architects + engineers has an established process which it has used on hundreds of projects to prepare construction cost opinions. Using comprehensive data input, our construction cost opinions are driven in part by both square footage and cost per square footage estimates.

In this instance, a portion of the total square footage of this project was inaccurately input, which directly impacted the cost opinion and pre-bond budgeting. As a result, the construction cost opinion provided by H2M was 21.5% below what it should have been for purposes of bonding by the Village for this project.

H2M architects + engineers has built its reputation for more than 85 years on our ability to work collaboratively with our clients as a trusted professional. As part of this unbending dedication to servicing our clients, H2M will continue to work with the Village of Mount Kisco to help move this important project forward.

Bids for the Green Street facility came in up to $2 million higher than the pre-bond estimate earlier this month, the Examiner reported.

The project also is supposed to include work at the Lexington Avenue firehouse and the East Main Street facility. The firehouses need to be upgraded to comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act. They're too small for modern equipment. And they weren't built with decent facilities for female emergency responders.

The village board will meet Monday.

Read the entire article on theexaminernews.com

SEE ALSO:

• On The Ballot: Renovating Mount Kisco's Firehouses
• Mt. Kisco Mulls Expanding Firehouses

Editor's note: this article has been revised to include a statement from the architects.