Norwich awards storage-building contract; trustees wrestle with firewall change order and who pays

Norwich Township trustees voted in June to award the construction contract for a new township storage building to Classical Construction for $828,000 after a competitive bidding process. Fire Chief Jeff Warren ran the procurement and the board authorized the contract without including a contractor contingency allowance that had appeared in the bid documents.

Problems emerged after shop drawings and value-engineering revisions identified a code requirement triggering a firewall or sprinkler system. The storage facility’s net footprint exceeded 5,000 square feet during several iterative design stages, which, under Ohio building code, can require a fire-suppression system unless the structure is separated by an approved firewall. Classical Construction proposed a change to the divider wall finish and structure (installing two layers of drywall through the roof trusses and adding new posts and a truss) rather than installing a sprinkler system. The contractor submitted a change order for the firewall revisions; OHM Advisors, the project design firm, supplied drawings and participated in preconstruction meetings.

Trustees expressed concern that the firewall cost was not captured earlier in the design process. Trustee Larry Earman said the engineering deliverables had not made the code implication clear and asked OHM to share responsibility; Vice-Chairman Charles Wm. Buck said the board needed the building finished and suggested resolving the cost dispute without litigation. Chairman Timothy Roberts directed the township administrator to seek a detailed, itemized explanation of the change-order costs from Classical Construction and to ask OHM Advisors to explain why the need for the specific firewall approach was not captured earlier.

While the board withheld further construction-management payments pending those details, it approved two smaller contractor credits earlier in the project (for using the contractor’s standard building package and for formed trench drains), reducing costs by $13,100. Separately, the trustees also approved related site work change orders (a transformer relocation and associated conduit extension) after confirming the county electric utility required the new transformer siting.

Trustees said they would not make a final decision on the firewall charge until presented with Classical Construction’s cost breakdown and OHM Advisors’ explanation of design responsibility. The board emphasized it wanted the building completed on a schedule that minimizes cost escalation: Classical Construction asked for an extended completion date because of supply-chain uncertainties; trustees asked for firm, dated milestones and for documentation of any material-cost increases.

Next steps: the township administrator will collect Classical Construction’s itemized change-order detail, request a written technical justification from OHM Advisors, and bring both responses back to the board for a formal determination on cost responsibility and any revised schedule.