Nicarico center numbers look encouraging

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Artist's rendering of the new DuPage County Children's Advocacy Center/Family Center in Wheaton. |Illustration courtesy~Serena Sturm Architects.

Updated: February 27, 2012 8:07AM

The facility to be named in memory of a slain Naperville 10-year-old and dedicated to helping kids victimized by crime may be on track to come in under budget.

Construction has yet to be begin on the Jeanine Nicarico Children’s Advocacy Center in Wheaton, but the county’s public works committee last week liked the firm suggested by staff for performing specialized resident engineering duties through June 2013, at a fee of $285,020.

Kathy MacLennan, facilities manager for the county, said seven bids were received, and four firms were interviewed for the contract. Initially planned to meet the parameters for a silver-level Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design distinction, the project is now going for gold, or perhaps even top-ranked platinum honors.

“Being that this is going to be a LEED-certified facility ... we wanted to find a resident engineering firm with experience in this sort of certification,” MacLennan said.

If the contract is awarded, Wight’s representative will act as “the county’s on-site person during the whole process, working with the general contractor,” she said later.

Officials said not many firms have logged as much familiarity with the requirements of the LEED program as has Wight, which has offices in Darien and Chicago.

“They were the only ones I saw that were really qualified,” said committee member Pat O’Shea.

Contract negotiations, which were not conducted with the three other finalists, were based on hourly rates and aimed at keeping the expense at 6 to 8 percent of the total project cost, MacLennan said.

“Normally the fee is around 10 percent,” said Naperville board member Jim Healy, who recently took over as committee chairman.

Healy, a member of the advocacy center’s board since 1999, has pushed for several years for the new facility, which also will be home to the DuPage Family Center. Although the price tag has been estimated at around $4.2 million, it’s not yet known what the final cost will be, because a construction company has yet to be hired. That is expected to happen in February, MacLennan said.

Once the building begins, the goal is to have the work wrapped up in nine months.

“It’s very aggressive,” she said. “But that’s what I’m aiming for.”

County Board members already have approved agreements with the Chicago firm Serena Sturm Architects for design and project oversight services at the center, totaling $446,232. The company will continue to participate in meetings throughout the project, MacLennan said.

The County Board voted in July to use $3 million in General Fund reserves to pay for the project. The interdepartmental loan will be retired using traffic ticket surcharges passed along to the county. Officials expect it will take about a decade to retire the debt.

DuPage has saved a substantial sum in the preliminary site preparation of the property, which is part of its Wheaton campus, by using county employees already on the payroll for the water and electrical work.

“I went over and saw it while they were doing it, and it was just all our guys,” said Healy, who noted that the warm weather and lack of rain also helped accelerate the initial phases.

Healy and staff in the Public Works Department estimate the in-house labor has shaved $200,000 to $300,000 off the project’s cost, if not more.

An additional $200,000 has been promised by the state, with help from state Sen. Kirk Dillard, R-27th, of Hinsdale, although the check has not yet been received, Healy said.

Committee member Paul Fichtner, who heads the board’s finance committee, appeared impressed.

“So this is up to a half million dollars we didn’t expect to save,” he said.