Cost for Lakeville Fire Station slashed with construction bid

LAKEVILLE — Bids for the construction of the new Lakeville Fire Station were recently finalized, with the winning bid coming in at least $5 million less than the project’s initial budget.

The Lakeville Select Board approved the Page Building Construction Company’s $11.7 million bid for what was slated to be a $17 million project during a Tuesday, Sept. 16 Select Board meeting.

Select Board Vice Chair Lorraine Carboni, who chaired the Fire Station Building Committee, said a prequalification vetting process was used to simplify the bidding process — and of 15 companies that were approved, eight bid on the project. She added that all eight bids were in a close range, showing it was appropriately budgeted for.

“This is really good news, and it’s due in no small part to the people on the fire station building committee and the commitment of the [committee] Chair to watch every penny,” said Board Chair Maureen Candito.

“Thank you very much for doing all that work for two and a half years to get us to this point,” she added.

Carboni said the committee worked closely with the project manager, architect and consultant to prepare for the bids for market.

“There's a great team that has been put together, we’ve got a lot of talent with the committee members,” Carboni said. “They have done a fantastic job of putting all the elements together to bring us to the point that we could actually go out with proper bid documents.”

She said among the updates planned for the new building are improvements to the “archaic” communications system the old fire station had.

To monitor the progress on construction, the building committee will hold meetings every second Wednesday of the month.

Carboni said construction can be expected to begin in around four to six weeks, starting with netting around the site to protect turtles in the area.