- The size of the new Montezuma County Combined Courthouse may have to be reduced to about three-fourths of its original design in order to stay within budget.
Owner’s rep Monte Guiles told the county commissioners on Monday that in preliminary talks with the new contractor, FCI Incorporated, the price had “hovered” at about $300 per square foot, meaning the $7.5 million budget would allow for only a 25,000 square-foot structure. In the county’s request for proposals, the courthouse facility, designed by architects Humphries Polls, is described as encompassing about 33,000 square feet.
The project was originally awarded to Janes, Inc., but on April 18th Guiles had expressed disappointment in that company’s failure to apply any “value engineering” to the design to lower its estimated cost of more than $10 million. The commissioners then decided to switch to FCI, whose original ballpark figure had also exceeded $10 million, but who seemed more amenable to incorporating other cost-cutting measures. The commission held a closed-door executive session Monday afternoon to discuss negotiation strategies for arriving at a guaranteed maximum price with FCI. The county has been under increasing pressure from the state to build a modern and secure facility in one location to house district and county courts, now in two separate and aging buildings in Cortez.
