File photo
By Matt de Simone
At Monday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, Assistant County Administrator Jon Lanford provided the supervisors a summary of a proposal for building assessment and support services related to historic structures (located at the Historic Greenfield site and the Bryan McDonald Sr. House, a log structure located on the Roanoke Cement property in Troutville) as a project order under AECOM’s (Architecture, Engineering, Construction, Operations, and Management) Existing Master Services Agreement with the county. The board unanimously approved the assessment proposal.
Last year, Lanford worked on a proposal for bids on restoring the chimney on the Historic Greenfield property across from the county administration offices on International Parkway in Daleville. Due to the scope of that work, Lanford explained the Historic Properties Commission had a discussion to “expand” the project’s scope.
The assessment will tentatively take place this fall. Within the proposal provided to the board, the goal for this assessment is to support Botetourt County with information that will allow informed decisions to be made with regards to specific historic structures located within the county. AECOM has teamed with Doug Reed, a Historic Structures consultant and experienced adviser with more than five decades working with and assessing historic log structures. Reed has extensive experience in masonry methods used for chimneys and similar structures found in 18th and 19th century buildings.
In the scope of the services for this project found in the meeting’s agenda packet, it explained that Reed will review Botetourt sites for numerous tracks of information which include:
- Reviewing the original construction and appearance of structures as well as all subsequent additions, changes and other high level maintenance campaigns as best can be identified within the scope of the review.
- Identifying the character defining features (CDFs) of the building that define the significant period(s) of the building. CDFs are the features that should remain intact.
- During a building review, Reed will attempt to identify the condition of the buildings’ systems and components.
- For the Bryan McDonald Sr. House only, the structure will be studied to determine the feasibility of relocating the McDonald Sr. house from the cement plant property to the Greenfield property location. Such determination is also to include recommendations for how best to achieve the move of the house. The house will be evaluated for conditions potentially affected by the move, what will need to be done to the home in order to physically move it, and discovering the best route for the move.
Additionally, notes and photos will be taken at the site for use in the office when writing up the report, according to the proposal. A preliminary fact sheet titled the “Log Crib Survey Form” will be completely filled out at the site in rough form for all features that can be observed and described to ensure all data that can be collected is collected. The form also lists what cannot be collected or reviewed and why.
Following notification that the Preservation Committee has been invited to submit a full application for the planning grant, AECOM will review and revise the scope as necessary and submit a final lump sum fee for such services. This proposal provides a fixed fee contract for hours on a specified set of actions to be taken by the consultant for each of four log buildings. The estimated cost for AECOM services is $27,925.