Named for the address, the 203 Project in Carrboro is a project between the town and county to house both government and community services. The project was approved in March 2020 by the county commissioners with the county providing some of the funds for the project and the Town of Carrboro providing the rest. The estimated cost in the two years since has increased with both the county and town needing to invest more funding.
The 203 Project is a joint venture between the Town of Carrboro and Orange County. Orange County’s stake includes construction of a branch of the Orange County Library located in Carrboro as well as permit facilities for the skills development center. Carrboro’s portion of the project includes meeting spaces and offices as well as the new home of the WCOM community radio station.
Steve Arndt is the asset management services director for Orange County. He recently presented an update on the Carrboro 203 project to the Orange County Board of Commissioners. Arndt said the budget for the project has increased since initial approval of the project budget in March 2020 at $28 million to now $41 million.
“The county share of that increase was $5.4 million,” Arndt said. “We were dismayed at the results of the bidding to say the least.”
Arndt said while many elements within the project had the same price, supplies like concrete, steel, drywall and sewer had dramatic increases. He pointed to COVID-19’s economic effect on the construction industry leading to higher costs because of labor shortages.
“If we are to proceed with this project, there’s a budget shortfall of $5,400,333 and that would have to be financed through the issuances of debt,” Arndt said.
Some solutions, Arndt suggested, to reducing costs would be for the county’s facilities to be “shells.” This means the building would not be empty with no furniture, fixtures or equipment. If the commissioners chose to do that, the buildings would not be functional until they are finished at whatever point in the future.
Commissioner Earl McKee said the project has expanded far beyond the initial request for a southern branch of the Orange County Public Library.
“This thing has just ballooned,” McKee said. “I’m not saying there’s a fault, but this just completely ballooned from where we were talking about it originally. It seems to be getting out of hand. At some point in time the funds for other projects, the funds for other services are going to be impacted by this.”
McKee also acknowledged the importance of having a branch of the county library in Carrboro.
Commissioner Sally Greene agreed. She said while the increased price of the project is unfortunate, she said the commissioners agreed that they do not want to just shell the building.
“We’ve come a long way and we’ve got to figure out some way to get to the finish line,” Greene said.
Carrboro Mayor Damon Seils said he is also excited about the southern branch of the Orange County Public Library.
“This is going to bring even more vibrancy to downtown Carrboro on what is currently a single surface parking lot,” Seils said. “We’re talking about having a much better use of that space in a way that will support our local development efforts and support our other efforts around improving literacy and education and skills programs and things that are going to be especially important for young people in the community and other folks who really rely on having access to those kind of services and supports.”
Seils said this is the chance for Carrboro and the county to lock in the final price of the project which he said has been increasing over the past several years.
“Any kind of delay or redesign of the project to try and reduce those costs is really requiring us to send it back for rebidding for construction cost,” Seils said. “I think doing that would inevitably lead to even more costs in the end.”
Photo via Town of Carrboro
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