For Redevelopment—

FFH Panel Considers Management Firm

By John Voket

The end of 2004 will likely mark the end of a brief but exciting era for many town employees and volunteers who travel to the Fairfield Hills campus to work each day, or attend town board or commission meetings by night. As 2005 rings in, members of the ad-hoc Fairfield Hills Management Committee expect to be celebrating the relocation of the Board of Education and all other town personnel operating out of the ill-fated Canaan House.

The relocation will temporarily create a vacant campus, except for the small contingent of security guards and management staff who will conduct business out of a converted engineer’s house near the main entrance to the town-owned property. And soon enough, heavy equipment required for remediation and demolition activities will roll onto the grounds to initiate that phase of the facility’s redevelopment.

The new year may also bring significant changes to the scope and authority of the ad-hoc management committee itself. On Tuesday evening, members of the committee addressed several administrative issues, but then spent more than an hour speaking with Jeffrey Cugno, an attorney and director of development and program management services from O&G Industries, Inc of Torrington.

Mr Cugno was brought in to begin reviewing options and parameters that could lead to the management committee’s acquiescing day-to-day authority over business on the campus to a possible project management firm. Although Mr Cugno admitted he had worked on several projects over the years with volunteer entities acting in a management capacity, he said even major municipalities employing numerous management, development, and planning staff often engage the expertise of project managers, or an entire management firm, to see long-term projects to completion.

“In a project of this scope, you need a single source for decisionmaking,” Mr Cugno told committee members and First Selectman Herb Rosenthal. “Someone with the experience to manage both program and construction.”

He told the committee that decisions related to the many separate facets in these early phases of redevelopment were critical. “The committee and the town are going to need very expert management advice,” Mr Cugno said. He explained that unresolved issues involving everything from pesticide remediation to the manner in which buildings are demolished needed to be considered sooner rather than later, and that the town should have an experienced team coordinating on those decisions.

“If you hire the right firm, you won’t have to hire oversight personnel and other staff. That firm should have the technical experience and know how to negotiate the most effective budget they can,” Mr Cugno told the panel. He said given the broad variety of conditions of the buildings, and unknowns related to drainage and other environmental concerns on the grounds, the various contractors needed to be locked into highly specific contract stipulations.

“Otherwise it automatically turns into a number of different budget expectations,” he warned. “And it’s a good idea to prequalify all your trades before they are permitted to put their bids in.”

Mr Cugno circulated a handout that outlined the typical scope of work for a project management firm. It incorporated elements including solicitation of professional consultants to complete the development team, to the development of master project schedules, expediting interaction with local, state, and federal regulatory agencies to performing all the construction and postconstruction tasks required by the town.

Upon the conclusion of Mr Cugno’s presentation, committee chairman John Reed said the group had arrived at a point where the day-to-day management of the campus was winding down pending the relocation of Canaan House staffers to a leased office site on Pecks Lane.

“I felt we needed to begin sorting things out so we can move ahead. We have a big demolition project to get started and we really need to get a handle on how were going to proceed from a committee standpoint,” Mr Reed said.

The committee then voted to reconvene at a special meeting, tentatively set for December 7, to discuss its role in respect to the town’s future plans for the Fairfield Hills campus.