With approval of over $136 million in contracts for the Macomb County Jail project last week, the county has committed all of the federal funding by its year-end deadline.

The county Board of Commissioners last Thursday consented to handing over $136.5 million to Granger Construction Co. to pay subcontractors to complete more than 20 individual projects as part of the massive $228-million project to build a four-level Central Intake and Assessment Center, demolish parts of the old jail and renovate the existing jail tower.

The county had a Dec. 31 deadline to commit the expenditure of $130 million of $170 million it received in federal American Rescue Plan dollars that it allocated for the project. The other $40 million was allocated for multiple Public Works projects.

“The county will fulfill its obligation to commit the ARPA appropriation before the (U.S.) Department of Treasury’s deadline,” Joe Mallory, deputy director of county Facilities & Operations, told the board two days earlier at the Finance, Audit and Budget Committee meeting, where it received initial approval.

An official from Granger, which is the construction manager, said in November 2023 that it would be “a major challenge” to meet the deadline.

The county has now approved $170 million total for construction. The additional $40 million will be paid with a state grant, although, unlike the federal dollars, the county must pay for the individual projects upfront and receive reimbursement, officials said.

The county will foot the

bill for the expected nearly $50 million for the rest of the project, using the county’s fund balance, now projected to be $129 million at the end of this year. Finance Director Steve Smigiel said officials likely will ask the board in January to move $50 million in surplus dollars to the project.

Chief Deputy County Executive Mark Deldin noted another significance of last week’s approval.

“The projects are now — as far as construction is concerned — have now been bid out in totality. With your appropriation today, every project under the construction umbrella is now bid out,” Deldin told the board at the meeting in the county Administration Building in Mount Clemens.

He added that Granger “holds the contracts with the subcontractors. The county does not hold the contracts with the subcontractors.”

The projects approved last week primarily include electrical, plumbing and mechanical work, fire alarms, landscaping, paving and roofing, officials said. Some 21 subcontractors were approved for projects among 64 bidders; at least two and up to six companies submitting bids on each project.

“We were really pleased with the amount of bidders,” Deldin said. So many companies asked for extra time to “put together their numbers” that the deadline was extended one week, allowing more bidders and requiring county and their advisors to spend “countless hours” reviewing the propsals in 52 bid-review meetings, he said.

The biggest projects that were approved last week include:

• $26.7 million to Motor City Electric for electrical and fire alarms

• $23 million to Paula Jail for “detention equipment,”

• $14.8 million to Power Process Piping for plumbing,

• $12.5 million to S & Z Sheetmetal for “HVAC & Controls.”

Addiitonal construction projects were approved over the past several months.

So far, construction projects are about $10 million over estimates, although those will be paid from about $24 million in contingencies that is built-in to the total cost, Deldin said.

“You use that (contingency) on a project, particularly this large that can be so volatile because there are so many moving parts, you want it as a cushion in case you run into things you did not anticipate,” he said.

The low bid was selected in all but two of the projects, officials said. In one of the cases, the low bidder was not qualified, and in the other instance the company wanted to rebid.

Of the $10 million in contingencies so far, $6 million was for renovation projects at the existing jail tower despite accounting for about $25 million in total costs, Deldin said. The tower is nearly 45 years old and has been in need of many upgrades in recent years. Four million dollars went for contingencies in other projects valued at over $100 million.

“When you’re dealing with remodel, you sometimes get higher bids per square foot because you don’t know what you’re going to run into,” he said. “But the new construction bids were pretty close. They were pretty tight.”

With $10 million in contingencies used up, “We are starting the brick and mortar phase of this project with about $14 million in contingency,” Deldin said.

The jail projected was approved in July 2023, and the first year was spent in the design phase.

Demolition began last July.

Granger is being paid $9 million as the construction manager. The project manager, Plante Moran, will be paid $4.8 million while the design firm, Partners in Architecture, will be paid $10.4 million.

Officials believe the Central Intake and Assessment Center will serve as a state model for the criminal justice system address the root causes of criminal behavior including substance and abuse and mental-health issues.

The project includes construction of a 177,000 square-foot, four-level building for the central-intake center, mental health and detox beds, a small courtroom and offices, and general population. Some 78,000-square-feet of existing structures is being demolished, and 28,000-square-feet is being renovated.

The jail’s capacity would go from 1,034 to 1,218 beds to bring it back to near a level in the recent past, with a potential to go up to 1,438 if needed.

Discussions for a new jail have been going on for nearly 20 years before the project was approved. A plan in 2020 to place a 0.64 mill proposal on the 2020 election ballot to pay for a $300 million new jail was scrapped after the COVID-19 pandemic hit.