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Kingsport looks out of town for $2.25 million in architectural work

KINGSPORT — The city of Kingsport plans to spend more than $2.25 million with out-of-town firms for architectural and engineering services on five major projects taking place in the Model City.

Over the past several years, Kingsport has undertaken a number of major construction and renovation projects — the aquatic center, higher education center, an expansion at MeadowView, a new elementary school, and renovations at the library and V.O. Dobbins Community Center.

With five of the major projects, firms from outside the region received a contract to perform architectural and engineering services to the sum of more than $2.25 million. All of these firms did partner with local firms to assist in the project, But with many, the bulk of the architectural and engineering work was done out of town.

Kingsport selected McCarty Holsaple McCarty of Knoxville to perform the architectural and engineering work on the Kingsport Center for Higher Education. Cost of the contract was just over $1 million.

Lee Wang, with MHM, said the firm has partnered with Beeson, Lusk and Street of Kingsport to be the construction administrator, J.A. Street for the actual construction, and Fisher and Associates of Greeneville to be design consultants.

However, Wang said MHM was the architect of record and performed all of the architectural work for the project, hiring engineering firms near Knoxville for the civil, structural and mechanical/electrical/plumbing engineering work.

The $13 million KCHE is slated to be open later this month.

“(MHM) just happened to be the chosen group that could best do (the project),” said City Manager John Campbell. “They had the most extensive work in higher education. And with some of these projects, you have to ask, do these firms of record have enough size to do a big project because some don’t do large projects on a regular basis.”

Kingsport is planning a $13 million renovation and expansion project for the MeadowView Conference Resort and Convention Center. The city has hired Chapman Griffin Lanier and Sussenbach of Atlanta to perform the architectural and engineering work for just under $1 million.

Bud Griffin, with CGLS, said the company would be doing all of the architectural and engineering work but noted Tony Moore of Kingsport would be designing the indoor pool phase of the project, and J.A. Street would be the builders.

Griffin said Dave Lanier of CGLS was the architect who designed MeadowView 15 years ago.

Campbell said the main factor behind the selection of CGLS was because the company had done the original design work and that it is familiar with Marriott’s design requirements.

“No question that beforehand there were advantages to choose someone who had worked with Marriott before. Now I’m even more of a believer,” Campbell said. “If (a firm) has done the work before, they have a good shot of doing it again.”

For the aquatic center, Kingsport hired Lose and Associates of Nashville initially under a $160,000 contract to conduct the architectural work, civil engineering and landscape design. But city officials say that figure will soon be amended to $360,000.

Chris Camp, president of L&A, said the company has partnered with a number of other firms on the project — Spoden and Wilson of Kingsport (for the structural design work and construction administration), the KTA Group of Blountville (for mechanical, electrical and plumbing engineering), Alley and Associates (for survey work) and Dave Markey and Associates from Georgia (which conducted the original feasibility study on the Legion Pool).

Camp, who has been doing recreational facilities for 25 years, said local firms would perform about 30 percent of the architectural work on the project.

The city has hired PSA-Dewberry — a Fairfax, Va., architectural and engineering firm — to design an expanded library building and determine whether or not the library should relocate. PSA-Dewberry is the lead architect but has partnered with Cain Rash West of Kingsport on the project. The cost of the contract is $59,400, and according to Rick McCarthy with PSA-Dewberry, the company will be doing the bulk of the work.

With the library and aquatic center, Campbell said these projects are specialized and the firms selected have extensive experience in designing such facilities.

“You get a firm that had done 200-plus libraries across the country. Even local architects with other people involved would say it makes sense to hire people who do this all the time,” Campbell said. “The idea is to get the best qualified for that particular job.”

The last major project involving an out-of-town firm is John Adams Elementary School. Barge Waggoner Sumner and Cannon are the lead architects on the project, with J.A. Street as the construction firm. BWSC has a contract with the city for nearly $785,000 for architectural and engineering services, and the company has partnered with The DLR Group — a national firm specializing in the conceptual design of schools and prisons. BWSC officials say their company is doing the bulk of the work.

Kingsport has selected local architectural firms on a number of other major projects currently under way, though the dollar amount is much less than the contracts involving out-of-town firms.

•V.O. Dobbins Community Center expansion and renovation: Cain Rash West — $460,000.

•Fire Station 7: Beeson Lusk & Street — $65,000.

•Regional Center for Health Professions: Tom Weems — $130,000.

“When the (BMA) decides they want to do a project, our job becomes how do we deliver that project for the highest quality for the best value, the best price, the most cost effective project,” Campbell said. “You make it a fair process, send out (requests for proposals) and advise all local architects that it would be good to team up with somebody because we’re not sure the experience (in those projects) is here.

“It would be great if all those projects could be done by our local architects. I’d prefer that. But at the end of the day, we’re supposed to deliver the most cost-effective building possible.”

By Tennessee law, professional services (such as architectural and engineering) are chosen on the basis of quality and not by the lowest bidder. Campbell said the city and the firms cannot even discuss the fee during the selection process.

The city and the Kingsport Area Chamber of Commerce have undertaken an initiative to encourage residents to buy local whenever possible. One of the reasons being a portion of the sales tax goes toward Kingsport schools. An e-mail recently went out to city employees telling them to buy office supplies locally after an employee purchased supplies from a Sam’s Wholesale.

The Board of Mayor and Aldermen sometimes asks if certain city purchases for equipment and supplies are done locally, and Alderman Ken Marsh has asked about whether the city could do local-only in some of its bidding processes.

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Mr Freeman makes several very good points. But as a practicing architect and business owner, it is quite ironic that when it comes to quality architectural photography of his past Kingsport projects, Mr Freeman has brought in a photographer from California. There have been, and are, two outstanding architectural photographers based in the Tri Cities.
This appears to be a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Tom Raymond | 8/11/2009 - 5:04 PM - (Suggest Removal )

In my humble opinion, there is absolutely no reason for the city of Kingsport to look outside for professional firms to do architectural, engineering, or construction work, because there is much professional talent right here at home.

Hiring local talent would not only help the local economy, reduce the amount of taxes required to pay outside firms, but keep Kingsport from loosing the talented professionals that live here, but must look elsewhere for work.

Clayton Upchurch | 8/10/2009 - 7:33 PM - (Suggest Removal )

"All I hear is buy in Kingsport, eat in Kingsport, drink in Kingsport "


None of these involve professional employment. We have plenty of stores, bars and restaurants here. But we have slim pickings among the professional offerings.

Peter Stevenson | 8/10/2009 - 12:45 PM - (Suggest Removal )

Too much for me to comment on,but,ever so slowly,SOME locals MAY be starting to see the BIG picture.

Otis Vicars | 8/10/2009 - 11:00 AM - (Suggest Removal )

It's about time we started looking into how we treat local talent. You can easily hire any know how needed from outside to augment local capability and keep the jobs here as well as build local firms and capabilities. City manager Campbell knows very well how that works in Johnson City. I have tried to get work in JC and getting selected doesnt even work. How many of these firms support our community. By the way BLS is headquartered in Johnson City as is J. A. Street and Weems Firm. Also ask about where the city buys their Cars. We have stopped bothering to submit on City work because no attempt to use locals as primes is evident. We have the talent here in many professionals. Also look at the Boys and Girls Club and YMCA also going out of town for all services. The Design portion is only the tip of the Iceberg the real value is over $100,000,000.00 and the local jobs and dollars lost is almost incalculable.

The issue is if we want to use local talent at all. I know I am Blacklisted as well as one other firm that has dared to question the issue. The City uses a formula of one new industrial job creates so many other jobs. Used to be Six. So that being said how many jobs have we thrown away beyond the actuals. Our firm uses temps for fill in on projects and as a way to hire full time construction workers. Just a short while ago the agency we used had 50 carpenters availiable. This issue goes way beyond just efficient public spending. In analyzing the impact to the community regarding the total impact of these decisions lets look at the loss to churches, civic and other organizations that recieve their support from the community. I believe the impact from direct corporate giving and the giving of all parties involved exceeds the monies raised with our United Way Campaign. We all know that non-profits are struggling could part of this have been offset till things turn around. We need leadership that cares about the whole community both businesses and individuals.

Our leadership know and has known this economic meltdown was coming. The financial industry has known since 2006, Our Mayor is a Banker by the way. Keeping money home could help in ways that are way beyond what we see at first glance. These are our Tax Dollars. What if every project from DBHS to the Eastman Business Center had been done out of town. By the way DB was done by a partnership of several firms. The ability to meet procurement requirements and use local talent is not any harder than handing the projects out to a select few through the process currently being used.

The Citizens of this City need to open their eyes and see how the City is being run and talk to your Alderman.

Leadership yea right.

Mark Freeman | 8/10/2009 - 9:39 AM - (Suggest Removal )

I agree! All I hear is buy in Kingsport, eat in Kingsport, drink in Kingsport and then they go elsewhere instead of supporting local workers...way to go Kgspt...Guess you don't mind if I go to JC for everything now?

Marinomom T | 8/10/2009 - 9:11 AM - (Suggest Removal )

Architecture is a professional job. We don't have professional jobs here, especially those that can compete (design intellectually) with professional jobs elsewhere. And as the boss man says, its all about quality and not about cheap.

Peter Stevenson | 8/10/2009 - 8:33 AM - (Suggest Removal )

We'll here over the next couple of days how the best talent exists outside of Kingsport and the city leaders wanted these project to be as outstanding as they could be. That may be very well true. Then, when we apply the same logic to our consumer purchases, a logic which is not faulty in the least because we have better shopping and dining alternatives elsewhere, they will tell us that we aren't loyal and if we don't shop here our tax dollars will drop and the city schools will suffer. Too bad the old "Do as I say, not as I do" rationale applies here, as it does in most city business.

Richard Brown | 8/9/2009 - 11:13 PM - (Suggest Removal )

What happened to staying loyal and buying local? We prefer to support Kingsport's small businesses NO MATTER THE BOTTOM LINE.

Michael and Talina Ripper | 8/9/2009 - 10:33 PM - (Suggest Removal )

These "special" projects need to be put on hold. I do believe the doom and gloom about the economy is here no matter what some believe.
Why don't we have a lowest bidder thats local? TAXES maybe. Cost of living is the highest in the state.

Brian Haynes | 8/9/2009 - 8:41 PM - (Suggest Removal )

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