Anchorage Daily News

PALMER -- The Matanuska-Susitna Borough is preparing to fork over some big money this year getting ready for construction of a new state prison at Point MacKenzie.

The borough Assembly agreed Tuesday to pay project management and consulting company Rise Alaska $225,000 to represent the borough.

"The borough needs an owner's representative to assist with this project," borough finance director Tammy Clayton told the Assembly. "As you can imagine, this is quite a voluminous project."

Project costs will likely reach $220 million, borough purchasing officer Russ Krafft said Wednesday. The new facility, scheduled to open in 2012, will add 1,536 beds to the Alaska prison system.

The borough is coordinating construction and plans to issue general obligation bonds this fall to pay for the project. The state will pay the bonds by leasing the prison back from the borough. When the construction debt is repaid, the state will own the facility.

According to information from the borough, Rise will act as a project manager. The company will coordinate utility extensions, oversee design reviews and work with other agencies involved in the project.

Rise partnered last year with a Seattle firm, DLR Group, to oversee the site selection process and early designs of the prison.

The money to pay Rise will come out of borough coffers for now, Clayton said. The borough expects to be paid back this fall for the upfront project expenses it has covered so far.

"We'll be using this money for about four months," Clayton said.

The Assembly also agreed to spend another $800,000 to $1.2 million on the project in the fall in the form of stipends to compensate the companies who submitted unsuccessful proposals to design and build the prison.

Three companies are currently working on prison design proposals and schematic design details. Krafft said the detail required to design what will look like a university campus means the firms would be doing $800,000 or more worth of work.

"Nobody wants to lay out that kind of money with a one in three chance of winning the bid," Krafft said.

Krafft could only recall one other instance in which the borough compensated unsuccessful bidders on a project for work they submitted, but he said it's not an uncommon practice, especially on large projects.

"We're asking them to say what they will build and for how much money," Krafft said. "There's a big difference between designing a school and designing a correctional facility."

Design/build proposals are due back to the borough in September. Construction bonds will likely be sold in November, Krafft said, and the project contract awarded in December. Construction is likely to begin in spring 2009, he said.

Find Daily News reporter Rindi White online at www.adn.com/contact/rwhite or call 352-6709.

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