While final costs are still being tabulated for the newly christened Boerne Aquatics Center, changing construction companies midway due to delays actually resulted in more attention to quality, officials said.
Jerry Willingham, project manager for Waterman Construction, and Fred Waterman, a partner with the company, recently spoke about Waterman Construction’s five months of work to get the aquatics center ready by a “substantial completion” date of Dec. 1.
The Boerne Independent School District held a ribbon cutting on Dec. 15 for the long-awaited facility.
“It’s always challenging if you do a takeover project.”
— Jerry Willingham, Waterman Construction
Waterman took over the aquatics center project from another company the week of July Fourth — 11 months after the center’s projected, but missed, completion date of August 2024.
“It’s always challenging if you do a takeover project, because you don’t know what you don’t know,” Willingham said.
As Waterman dove into the middle of the assignment, he said, they were not aware of what was done prior to their arrival, which meant a thorough review.
“You have to come in and ... (familiarize yourself with) what’s been done, especially the underground utilities aspect of it,” Willingham said.
Boerne ISD broke ground in September 2023 on the $8.7 million project approved by voters in the district’s 2022 bond election. The project, initially awarded to another contractor, was expected to be finished by August 2024.
That did not happen, and delays continued to mount. The school district broke from the orginal firm in mid-June of this year, then hired Waterman.
Waterman spent two weeks conducting its initial assessment to “to find all the deficiencies and ... create a pretty lengthy list” of what needed to be done, officials said.
Willingham said completing the right of way was up next.
“We had to get the right of way completed at the same time we were correcting deficiencies inside the swimming pool,” he said. “We had to get the valves installed on the water main, finish the sidewalk out there and do all the ... signage and the (Americans with Disabilities Act) ramps.”
Waterman said his company performed an inspection on Dec. 1, the “substantial completion” date.
“We’ve worked through about 90% percent of the punch-list items at this point, just a few cosmetic things.” Waterman said on Dec. 15, the day Boerne ISD received its certificate of occupancy and held a public ribbon cutting. “The safety issues and all the major items were all accomplished before that inspection.”
Willingham said their biggest concern was ensuring the integrity of the pool remained intact. The contractor came back and re-welded every single panel and all the seams on the pool liner. All the markers and stripes were repainted.
“We just didn’t want to take any chances once we put water in the pool, if there had been any leaks,” Willingham said.
Waterman added that all such work was captured in a spread sheet and given to the district to seek reimbursement from the previous contractor.
Final cost reconciliation is under way, according to the district.
“As with every construction project, we complete a full accounting process as part of formal project closeout, which typically takes several months and varies from project to project,” said Maggie Dominguez, Boerne ISD director of communications.
Meanwhile, district swim teams are already putting the pool to good use, particularly enjoying the spring-and-summer-like weather to end the year.
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