Last week, Brandee K. Nelson, Project Manager for the Engineering/Landscape firm of Tighe & Bond, gave a presentation to the Marlborough Town Board on their services that will lead to restoring the North Pier at the Milton Landing. Last year the pier suffered significant fire damage after a lit cigarette slipped through the surface decking and onto the pylons below.

Nelson said Tighe & Bond will conduct a full inspection of the damage to the pier, draw up a new design, conduct the bidding process and handle the construction phase services. She said the company’s total fee to perform this work will not exceed $75,500. The company bills at an hourly rate in an agreement that is already in place, since they are one of the town’s engineering firms.

Nelson broke out her company’s fee schedule, starting with the underwater inspection at $14,000. The design and specifications for the timber pier repairs of the top platform is $23,000 and an aluminum gangway is $5,000.

To conduct the bid phase, Tighe & Bond’s fee is $6,000 and their construction observation services is $10,500, which includes four hours/day x four weeks for 80 hours, plus mileage. This also includes field observations, reviews of contractor pay requests, Requests For Information [RFI] and for submittals that will bring the project to final closure. They will be working with the town to ensure they receive reimbursements from the insurance company.

Construction meetings will cost $3,500, and the construction administration of the timber pier repairs is $10,000 and for the aluminum ramp, the fee is $2,500.

Supervisor Scott Corcoran voiced concern that the underwater inspection seemed high, but Nelson pointed out that this will be done by their subcontractor, Seaway Diving and Salvage, using a three-man team, which she expects will go down about 45 feet to the river bed.

“This information will be used to make repair recommendations or load rate the structure, or both, and also to evaluate the extent to which permitting will be required,” Nelson said.

Corcoran noted that he also received an estimate of $164,000, “for code book updates, which we’re going to make the pier ADA compliant...We had that in our insurance and we fought for it and Brandee and the Code Enforcement Officer helped us out by writing letters and the insurance company agreed to it.” He said the town can ask for more money if the bids come back higher than expected from contractors.

“It is not guaranteed, but we do have more in our insurance policy than what we’re seeing here,” he said.

Corcoran said current estimates assume that the pylons are still in good shape after the decking is removed.

Nelson explained how the funding works with the insurance company.

“One is just to repair what was damaged by the fire and the other, when you do a rebuild, you typically have to bring a structure up to code. In this case, the code included ADA improvements, so that would be the gangway that goes from the park out to the pier, which is currently not ADA compliant,” she said.

Nelson said after negotiating with the insurance company, they agreed to the gangway ADA improvement. She said there will be a public bid for the project, and it will be a prevailing wage job.

Nelson said currently the north pier is used for fishing and other low impact activities, but if the town wants it to be used for additional docking of boats, Tighe & Bond may have to incorporate that use in their design.

The Town Board unanimously agreed to allow the Supervisor to sign the contract with Tighe & Bond, that will start moving the repair project forward.