The Sedona City Council approved a 15th change order for $382,123 to its contract with Fann Contracting for the Uptown garage project during its May 27 meeting to cover additional soil nailing work on the garage foundations.
Director of Public Works Kurt Harris told the council that the necessity for the change order arose due to work crews encountering rock fractures during excavation.
“During excavation of the parking garage site the underlying geology of the rock mass was found to contain numerous horizontal and vertical bedding planes [fracture planes] resulting in unexpected overbreak along the perimeter of the excavation and vertical plane of the soil nail wall system for the parking garage structure,” the agenda bill accompanying the change order stated.
“While pre-split was performed along the perimeter of the wall plane prior to production to minimize breakout, the results varied greatly,” the item read. “Some portions of the pre-split performed well while others, primarily along the naturally fragmented or fractured zones, performed poorly. Additional shotcrete placement was necessary to build back or in-fill those vertical wall planes where excessive breakout occurred … It was subsequently concluded that the current soil nailing approach for development of perimeter walls remained the best approach from the basis of both cost and schedule.”
Harris specified that the amount of the change order was already included in the project budget as part of the contingency fund.
“What percent of our contingency on the project will be utilized?” Councilman Brian Fultz asked.
Associate engineer Bob Welch said the change order would consume roughly 40% of the project’s budgeted contingency funds.
Information that Welch provided indicated that the 15 change orders on the project so far have cumulatively totaled $6,340,737.70, increasing the contract value from $10,683,253 to $17,023,990.70 and the number of days on Fann’s contract from 482 to 1,089.5.
The council approved the change order unanimously 6-0, with Councilman Derek Pfaff absent.
