The infrastructure company that was awarded a contract to design the first building at the Stockton Aviation Research and Technology Park already wants to be paid more.
Infrastructure company AECOM was last month granted an additional $41,234.00 for an amended contract worth $738,390.00, according to the minutes of the Atlantic County Improvement Authority’s August meeting. The extra money is needed because when AECOM submitted its original bid, the scope of the project was not yet finalized, according to the minutes. “Therefore, certain assumptions were made, and while some of these assumptions were correct, some were inaccurate,” the minutes state.
Among the changes are an allowance to design a “Thunder Room” (a kind of top-notch conference room, apparently) and a roof-top deck. These design features are optional extras, so if the cost of building them is outside the Authority’s budget, it won’t have to fit the bill, according to the minutes.
The ACIA approved the resolution 6-0-1 with Commissioner Joseph Ingemi abstaining.
Stockton University is now the lead agency running the Stockton Aviation Research and Technology Park (SARTP) at the Federal Aviation Administration’s site in Atlantic County (the William J Hughes Technical Center). Work on the first buildings is scheduled to begin this year, according to documents recently issued by the County. When it is completed, the SARTP should provide more than 4,000 high-paying jobs, the documents say.