Plum Town Center construction manager approved, borough plans moving forward

More pieces are falling into place for a proposed Plum municipal center.

Council voted 5-0 Wednesday night to appoint Massaro Construction of O’Hara as the Plum Town Center’s construction manager at an estimated cost of $425,000.

Councilmen John Anderson and Mike Pastor were absent.

The project’s estimated cost is $12 million.

Officials say the project can be done without raising taxes.

Massaro has worked on multiple borough projects through the years, including as the construction manager for the public works and EMS buildings along Old Mine Road.

That’s the site of the proposed new borough building.

The town center would house a police station, municipal offices, gym, a plaza and a community center — essentially an all-in-one government service center.

The current Plum Community Center is located at 499 Center-New Texas Road.

Massaro also did pro-bono work on a community center extension project about nine years ago.

“They’re local guys in Allegheny County, and they’re good guys,” council President Mike Doyle said of Massaro. “We’re thrilled to have them. They’re really a great teammate for the borough. As far as the timeline, we’re right on it and we’re really excited to break ground and get this thing moving.”

Doyle believes the town center will be a great asset for the borough, and the sooner administration and other staffers are in their new working quarters the better.

“This building here is completely antiquated,” Doyle said about the current site. “There’s more duct tape in this building than there is in Lowes and Home Depot put together. It’s long overdue.

“We’re doing this without raising any taxes. It’s going to be a heck of a project. It’s going to be a better working environment for the staff and better for the community.”

Officials hope to break ground in spring and be in the building by November 2021.

Council approved Kevin Turkall, founding principal of Designstream Architectural Studio, as its architect in October.

His fees are projected to cost about 6% of construction costs.

Council authorized seeking bonds for the project in September.

Thomas said the borough plans to take out a $15 million bond. Of that, $12 million would go toward the town center, $2 million for stormwater projects and $1 million for parks and recreation. The borough recently refinanced about $10 million in bonds.

Plum’s bond counsel is Ron Brown of Cohen & Grigsby. Its bond underwriter is Piper Jaffray, which will market and sell the bonds. They may be issued late this months or in early December.

The plan is to have a developer repurpose the current borough building site at 4575 New Texas Road into retail and other business fronts, and use those funds to repay the bonds.

Thomas said requests for proposals (RFPs) may be sent out some time next year.

“Right now, because of time, we’re going to be focused exclusively on getting the borough building project started,” he said. “Once that gets up and running we will be working with council to get the RFP finalized and have the authorize it to go out on the street and take proposals from developers. That will be starting in 2020.”

Conceptual drawings of the proposed Plum Town Center are available to view at the borough office.