Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/114013
Sarasota News Leader March 8, 2013 Page 22 a mean elevation above ground level of between 4 and 5 feet. Because of that 9-foot vertical transition, Sweet said, an ADA-accessible ramp slightly more than 120 feet long had been incorporated into the design. The total area of the structure, Sweet added, will be 2,858 square feet. Backing out the landscaping cost for the project — about $100,000 — and the expense for a dumpster enclosure in a parking lot about 100 yards away from the facility, the "hard construction cost was about $663,000, Sweet said. That was about $231 per square foot. A Google Map shows the location of South Lido Beach in Sarasota. Image courtesy Google Maps The overall expense was comparable to the cost of new restroom facilities at Casperson Beach and Manasota Beach, he pointed out. $300,000 a year, and we would save millions of dollars." When Brownman provided a breakdown of the other expenses, he noted that $135,052 Moreover, Barbetta said, such a person "could was the expense for internal support of Pub- manage a lot of our projects … To take a projlic Works staff. Additionally, the "Central Ser- ect like this and have it end up at $1.3 million vice" expense was $46,900. The latter amount doesn't make a lot of sense to me." reflected charges "across the organization," he He added, "To have Public Works supported said, including the county's Human Resourcby construction projects is not the right way es and Information Technology departments' to do it." support, as well as support from the Office of Financial Planning. Brownman pointed out that the system was set up in 2008 "to relieve a burden on the genSince 2008, he noted, the Public Works Deeral fund at the time." partment had been adding such charges to project totals. "It's a phantom cost," Barbetta said of the staff time being billed. THE FIGURES Barbetta added that he would guess five or six While Barbetta said Sweet's cost-per-square- county employees sit in on meetings once a foot figure was reasonable, he objected to project has been designed, when one or two the internal expenses. "With the amount we'll probably would be sufficient. spend on projects for construction management," he added, "we might as well hire a Brownman pointed out that staff does coorfull-time, retired architectural engineer and dinate projects and review consulting archihave him work for us and pay him $200,000 or tects' work.