The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Finished in 448 days
Roy Blythe loves to be in a hurry when he comes to town. The owner of Blythe Group & Co. first came to the county last year to design and manage the school district’s six renovation projects in around 18 months.
Now he’s back on another mission as the architect pushing a punishing schedule for the construction of the new county jail and public works facility. He told the Gunnison Board of County Commissioners at a regular meeting on April 20 that he hopes to have foundations for the two buildings poured by this fall.
Blythe was just hired by the county in March and already has two teams working on the projects—one on the jail and the other on the Public Works facility. Those teams have spent the last couple of weeks gathering information and data about the needs of the people using the buildings, and putting together ideas for the final products.
“That facility program plan that we’re putting together will be sort of the bible that we will start from when we’re trying to do concept drawings and trying to put together the spaces,” Blythe told the commissioners. “That way we can force the buildings to operate like they should… instead of operating the way the building allows you to operate.”
While a cost estimate for the projects is still a way off, Blythe said the program plan will help the estimator make a guess at what each space in the program will cost even before the contractor breaks ground. That will give the county administrators a number to work from when developing a financing strategy.
Mike Mismash, the county’s owner representative for the projects, told the commissioners, “From a 50,000-foot level, we are on track. We started the project given certain goals and objectives, which were to get the project started… Now we’re trying to accommodate the seasonality of work in Gunnison County.”
And with the only outdoor building season approaching fast, Blythe and Mismash have set a blistering pace for the preliminary design and outdoor construction work with the hope of enclosing spaces for contractors to work inside of this winter.
Blythe even had a preliminary plan detailed down to the day to show the commissioners. According to his early estimation the jail project will move in seven main stages over 448 days. Because the design of the Public Works facility is less complicated, its design and construction should only take 300 days.
Design development and the process of getting all of the construction documents in order for both projects will start together in May and last until the beginning of October. September 8 is the date Blythe thinks crews will be moving onto the job sites to start foundation work.
And like with the school renovation projects that Blythe is leading, he says local labor is still a priority with the county’s projects and not just because it’s an opportunity to spend the construction money locally.
“Even though some of the local contractors might not be large enough to bond for a project of the size of the jail or public works facility, we’ll be encouraging those larger subs to team with locals,” Blythe said. “One of our experiences on Western Slope has been that when the job is done, everyone goes away … but they need someone locally who knows how everything works.
“We need to leave you healthy that way also,” he continued. “So it’s about more than just the bottom dollar. The process lends itself to being a team effort.”
Commissioner Hap Channell thanked Blythe for making that consideration and said, “That’s very important to us. With the economy the way it is, it’s a real high priority for us.”
During the first phase of developing the project designs, Blythe has also looked to staff members with expertise and Sheriff Rick Murdie applauded the architect for having an open mind with his design plan.
And Blythe and his design teams took even more input during a public hearing on the concept and different design ideas for the jail that was held Wednesday, April 21 at the Fred Field multipurpose room.
