On Monday, the Montezuma County commission approved Jaynes Corp. as the general contractor for the new combined courthouse project, and set a guaranteed maximum price of $8,268,783.
The 32,000-square-foot facility will be built next to the Montezuma County Sheriff’s Office building and will house county and district courts, court clerk and records, and probation offices. Construction is expected to begin next month, and be completed by summer or fall of 2017.
The county’s original budget for the combined courthouse was $7.5 million, and estimated construction costs initially came in at $11 million.
A two-month value-engineering process between Humphries Poli Architects of Denver and Jaynes Corp. brought down the construction price to $8.3 million, said owner’s representative Monty Guiles. Jaynes Corp has offices in Durango and New Mexico.
“They were able to get the price to a level palatable with the county that retains the same building envelope,” he said.
The new courthouse is thought to be the last in the state to combine district and county courts under one roof.
A $2 million grant from the Department of Local Affairs was awarded for the project, and the state’s Underfunded Court System pitched in $586,300 grant. The remaining $5,682,483 will be paid for out of county coffers.
A condition of the DOLA grant was to build the courthouse to the LEED Gold standard for building efficiency. But to save costs, Guiles said, they have verbal authorization from DOLA to reduce the LEED level to the certified standard.
“It will still be a LEED building, but will be 30 percent more efficient than a traditional building instead of 50 percent more efficient,” he said.
As part of the approval, contract language was to be adjusted to state that all change-orders were to be negotiated with the county. The county and Jaynes initially parted ways, but teamed up again on the project after FCI Constructors backed out.
The new combined courthouse will free up building space for other county departments such as social services, which is currently spread out in two locations.
jmimiaga@the-journal.com
