Geneva selects CMR for planned Family Resource Center

GENEVA – A representative of the construction manager at risk for the Geneva Area City School District’s new Family Resource Center expressed enthusiasm for the project at the board’s Oct. 21 meeting.
At the meeting, the board passed a resolution selecting Scapcon, LLC as the best value construction manager at risk for the Family Resource Center project and authorized the negotiation and execution of an agreement for preconstruction services with Scapcon in an amount not-to-exceed $12,760.
The construction manager at risk will plan, coordinate, manage, and direct all phases of the project, according to the resolution.
“We’re very excited about the Family Resource Center,” Lucas Bernesser, an executive with Scapcon, told the board prior to the vote to select Scapcon. “We know that this is an exciting time for the Geneva area in general. You just had your groundbreaking for the stadium last week or the week before. Congratulations. That’s very exciting. And now with this, this is another exciting project. Somebody might say, ‘Well, it’s a smaller project,’ but there’s no such thing. It’s all exciting times for the district. And so we’re just very excited and just very happy to be a part of this.”
Bernesser was pleased that the district had chosen ThenDesign Architecture, Inc. (TDA) for the design professional services on the project.
“We’re excited that you chose TDA, also, as your architect,” he said.  “We’ve done a lot of work with TDA. We know how they work, they know how we work.” He thought there would be a nice synergy.
In response to a question from a board member, Bernesser provided some information about the work that Scapcon would be doing.
“We’ll get involved with estimating as TDA ends up making their different drawings,” he said. “We’ll end up providing an estimate based on those drawings. So, I believe they’re going to be having 60 percent drawings here pretty soon, so we’re going to have a estimate on those.”
He said scheduling was another part of the job.
“We’ll also get involved in the scheduling just to make sure once everything’s done, we have all the phasing correct, we have everything coming in on time,” he continued.
He noted that they’ll also be doing some work regarding the bidders.
“We’ll also get involved with pre-qualifying bidders, all the subcontractors, so we’ll make sure that all the different packages for whatever work that ends up needing to be done is put out on the street,” he said.
He added that Scapcon will reach out to all of the subcontractors in the area, not just ones that it’s worked with in the past. In addition, he said Scapcon will reach out of the community to make sure they’re aware of the project and how they can get more involved.
“So, there’s a lot of things that we end up doing in pre-construction before anything actually starts coming out of the ground,” he said.
Joseph Spiccia of Anchor Point Strategies, LLC, which has an agreement with the school district to assist in making the center a reality, also spoke at the meeting.
He said there was a discussion recently with the Ashtabula Foundation.
“Their grant period opens up in February,” he told the board. “We sat down and looked at the grant application. They have some enthusiasm for it.”
He added that he had a meeting the next week with the new executive director of the United Way to look at how the organization might be able to support the project as well.
Spiccia said he and a colleague also met with University Hospitals.
“And they do some philanthropy from the standpoint of in-kind donations,” he said. “And we created a list for them of things that we would like from them, and they sent us back this list that they have available to us when the time is right.”
He said the list included such things as medical exam tables and pediatric exam tables, among others.
“So, that’s our report right now,” he said. “We continue to move forward. We are excited about the project as you are. We’re really happy for you.”
The Family Resource center, which will be located in “the house on the hill” above Geneva High School, is anticipated to be done in a year.
According to Lombardo, the district is anticipating that the house will be 100 percent functional by Fall 2027.
According to information presented at a previous meeting, the formally stated goals for the center, which will serve students and families in Geneva, are to provide access to healthcare, behavioral health, and essential services; support family stability to improve student outcomes; and create a hub connecting schools, agencies, and community partners.