Kent State to Pay Ohio Firm $2.5 Million for Construction Consultation

An Ohio construction firm will be paid $2.5 million by Kent State University in consultation fees to oversee about $150 million in construction projects on the Kent campus.

University officials signed off this month on a contract between Kent State and Sharon Center, OH, firm The Ruhlin Company to manage four of the largest construction projects in the university's "Foundations of Excellence, Building the Future” initiative.

The major projects to be managed by the firm are: the new College of Architecture and Environmental Design building; a new facility for the College of Applied Engineering, Sustainability and Technology; a new multi-disciplinary research facility via renovations to several existing buildings; and construction and renovations for the School of Art.

The four projects Ruhlin will oversee, with budgets totaling near $150 million, will be paid for in part through the university’s issuance of $170 million in general receipts bonds for other campus construction.

The contract also sets completion schedules for the projects with the overall term of the contract ending, and all projects expected to be finished, by October 2013 "or when the work ... is completed to the satisfaction" of university officials. Though the agreement includes an option to extend the contract.

The agreement stipulates the new building for the college of architecture will be finished in 2015 but does not identify a month or quarter. New construction or renovations for the art school also are scheduled to be finished in 2015.

Renovations to the sciences buildings should be finished in 2016. And the new College of Applied Engineering, Sustainability and Technology building should be finished in 2014, according to the contract.

The university's board of trustees voted in December to give administrators the OK to contract with the firm for the construction.

Kent State Board of Trustees member Jacquline Woods said The Ruhlin Company was chosen by the university to manage the critical elements of the campus renovation after "an exhaustive interview process."