Aim Hometown Innovations Podcast: Rushville City Center

After the design-bid-build approach fell short, the City of Rushville took a bold leap with the design-build method—and the results speak for themselves. What once was a crumbling Masonic Temple is now a thriving City Center that serves as the heartbeat of the community.

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On the Hometown Innovations Podcast, AIM CEO Matt Greller talks with Rushville Mayor Mike Pavey and Steve Savoie from Performance Services about the project and how the City of Rushville’s vision came to life with design-build.

 

Follow Along with the Transcript Below:

Matt Greller

Welcome to the AIM Hometown Innovations Podcast. I’m Matt Greer with Aim. Today we’re talking about a unique story with Mayor Mike Pavey of Rushville and Steve Savoie with Performance Services. There’s a lot of course to talk about when it comes to Rushville, but today we’ll be talking specifically about the Rushville City Center Project.

Mayor, Steve, welcome to the podcast.

Mayor Mike Pavey

Thank you.

Steve Savoie

Thanks.

Matt Greller

Good to be here. We’re sitting here in the pro project we’re gonna talk about here in just a little bit, Mayor. But first of all, you’ve been mayor for a little bit now. We’ve been talking beforehand about all the different legislative things that have been happening over the last few months.

How did you get to be in the mayor’s office, and why are you still here? What’s next on your agenda, so to speak?

Mayor Mike Pavey

Wow. I wish I knew. I got to be here. Actually, studied to be and was a structural engineer for years. I think just tired of it. You burn out and wanted to control a little bit of my own time.

And so, started looking into economic development and believe it or not, was. And at that time I was, I’m Republican and the mayor at the time was Democrat and went in and talked to him and said, “Hey, I think we can do some interesting things”. And he became very clear that you’re a Republican and I’m a Democrat, and that’ll never happen.

And so I really didn’t really think about what my options were. And a guy called me and said, “Hey, why don’t you just, he’s not gonna run again. Why don’t you just drop out of the raise or the competition for economic development director, and why don’t you become the mayor?” And I was like, “I don’t know”.

And so thought about it and came back and said, I think I will. And was fortunate enough to win and so have, yeah, we’ve been able to undertake a lot of what I would consider transformative and exciting projects. So I think it’s continued to meet the challenges that, that I want as a career.

And so I’ve stuck around. And like I say at this point, I haven’t burned out of this career, so I’m still here.

Matt Greller

It’s one of the more unique, I think, smaller communities in the state. I love visiting here. I remember years ago we were here, just right after Stellar, having a meeting down on the corner and walked down the street and saw your farmer’s market for the first time, maybe the most interesting farmer’s market in the state of Indiana.

But lots of good things going on here in Rushville. Again, just a great example of think the work that you’ve done and how to revitalize the small agricultural-based community out here in Indiana. Let’s jump into the project guys. Tell us a little bit about the history and why you went down this road to revitalize this facility.

What were some of the early challenges that you may have had and we’ll get us get into it right away.

Mayor Mike Pavey

So this was a project that really, it was one that we felt like needed to happen. The building had fallen in disrepair and we were concerned that we were gonna be demo-ing it in about six months.

Quite honestly. It had some, envelope issues that had been compromised. So it had we were talking about how long will it be before we put an order in to condemn the building and raise the building. The original plans for this project never really included the city.

It included it. We basically had done a study and they came back and said it would be a great place for a performing arts. We had the theater kind of a bistro on the first floor, and the second floor became kind of support for those. But just through the scale and the size of the community, it was a challenge.

And so whenever the building got in such disrepair. We came along and said, let’s rethink, let’s see what we think can be a, maybe a different idea for it. We were tucked away in a, in what I said, felt like a modular a few blocks away. And so having people over if this would’ve been, today would’ve happened at that facility.

We would’ve been in the basement. And Brian Sheehan, that’s where he lived, and he said it smelled like cat litter. But that’s, so we knew we were running outta space. And I think one of the fundamental things that had been something that we’ve has been a philosophy of ours is, “How do we expect people to invest in our community if we don’t invest in ourselves?”

So then it became what does this look like? And I think the relook of this facility was, let’s try to keep the theater on the first floor. We need some type of post-secondary education component, and that became IB Tech. And then the second floor, how do you support it all? Let’s put the city center up there and that’ll pay for the envelope.

And so that’s, that was really what we were looking to do, and that’s how it evolved from what it’s original intent was to where we are today.

Matt Greller

Steve you’re with a great company Performance Services, a great partner of Aim, a great partner of many communities around the state of Indiana.

Why don’t you just talk a little bit about the project from your standpoint and why, the traditional design-bid-build model maybe wasn’t the greatest fit for this project.

Steve Savoie

Yeah. A pleasure being here. So I remember that basement that when our, some of our first meetings discussing the projects, the opportunity.

The goals. And I think also you’re very candid in sharing how you got to this moment. At that time I think you went through a design process and, what I’ll say a kind of a traditional kind of plant design-bid-build approach.

Kind of a planned spec kind of approach, it’s called in the industry. And it, you had some challenges with that and I think in a nutshell, I think you got to the point where it seems like you need to look at it differently and with kind of a different mindset and really, have the budget and design work together.

So I remember those discussions in the basement. I remember, we, so we, we try to break things down in pretty, in, in simple, manageable chunks. And, the city had a fixed budget, and a list of wants and priorities. So we started to kinda look at that.

I think some of the values and the value proposition of design-build versus. The traditional kind of design-bid-build approach started to show its value and gold throughout the process. So I think you appreciated, the sole accountability aspect of it in which, you know, rather than a finger pointing maybe scenario that you felt maybe in the past between, the, the contract, the design shows this way, the print showed this the detail shows this. I think the opportunity to have, the entity that’s gonna build the project to meet the goals and priorities of the city with the design team all in one roof, an all, all-in-one-team, created that collaborative approach in the beginning, which I think.

This project needed a collaborative approach. It really needed kind of both ends of the spectrum of the building and the design and kind of in those initial discussions.

Mayor Mike Pavey

Yeah.

Steve Savoie

As we started to define.

Mayor Mike Pavey

To fill the gap. And Steve’s done a really nice politically correct way of doing it.

Give us the real juice. We had interviewed and. We basically said that we, and it wasn’t a whole lot of science, quite honestly but we had said about $2.83 million is what we wanted the project to be. We interviewed architects brought them in and said, “Hey, could you design a building that we can, obviously the architecture is included, but can we get out of this thing for about 2.8 to $3 million?”

And they said yes. And we went through the process and Steve’s right it. For, it was a learning process and it’s a, it has a set amount of time. And in that, we went and our first bid came back at 7.2 million, so we knew we were in trouble. And that puts a lot of pressure on the elected official to one.

Why are you so far off? You hired somebody that’s not gonna be able to make that. And the contractor’s I think we got ’em because, they want this building and they’re right. They’re stuck. And so we went back and forth in that game. A couple years really trying to figure out how to maneuver it to get close to where we needed.

And by the end of it the architect I think they had just said, eh, we’re not gonna be able to get it that close. We’re not gonna be able to get the design. That low and the contractor really had no skin in the game. They had no incentive to make it lower. They came back and said, for $4.8 million, we can come in here and get this thing all metal studs and roughed in.

And we said what’s that? What’s that really do for us? It’s just a big building with metal studs and some HVAC, but nothing usable. And that’s what the council kept telling me is, we want something we can be proud of in the us, usable space we need. So at that point we separated relationships and came back.

We liked the concept, the design, so we bought that piece back, which I would encourage everybody to own your drawings and when you’re design, when you’re negotiating your contract. So we bought that piece back. We handed it over to Performance Services so they came in, didn’t get the opportunity to come in on like a fun dating relationships. They came in, we were a little bit jade and bitter but.

Matt Greller

And left at the altar, so to speak.

Mayor Mike Pavey

Yeah, exactly. So they came in and they navigated that tough first part and then became, said, what do you want to keep? And really that was the neat part is we broke it into phases.

And okay, what phase is the one that’s the most important for the council? And so we identified that and then, okay. Let’s figure out that budget and let’s build the other phases off of it. And so by the time, and Steve was great. It was. It was so nice because before, when you change your design, you don’t know the impact of that until they come back months later with, oh, by the way, here’s what that cost and in their system I think it was a perfect marriage at a perfect time because we had gotten out of this, I would say undesirable relationship and got into one that everything that wasn’t reacting the way we hoped it would, did react the way we hoped it is would.

It was, what about the carpet? I don’t know. What about the carpet? We can change the carpet that’ll save you $52,000. It allows you to go do this, this, and this.

And so it was a series of a lot of meetings and a lot of trade offs.

Steve Savoie

Yeah, I think, I think you summarized it was very much, and it needed to be a design to the target budget approach rather than design everything and not understanding really what it would cost the city.

So, I think we took a very proactive rather than a reactive approach. And I think that’s an alignment with kind of the design-build approach. That’s, it’s really our, all we do at Performance Services is that it’s not our budget, but we know that we’re solely accountable to, to maximize the vision and the priorities of the project. So you really have to be that collaboration that proactive approach rather than constantly reacting, which I think the mayor and the city maybe felt during that, those painful moments. It was much more reactive rather than proactive.

I think one way to do that is a modular approach, a phased approach, constantly checking and balancing as design or certain scope elements. There’s conversations that I’m talking about carpet, I think, okay, yeah, that’ll save that. That’s easy. Maybe decision, a smart approach.

Yeah. Carpet’s there, but then it’s okay, here’s the price point. You know that, a design. Let’s pick the best carpet for the chamber room that we’re sitting in here with kind of the budget we allocated for that facet of the scope. Because you always have to balance the wants versus the have-to-haves and the priorities.

And ultimately, identifying a project that meets the baseline priorities that the city needed at that time was the starting point. And then, as the design and the budgets and the costs come in. As predicted we’re able to add more things, rather than the reactive kind of scenario, which I think a lot of owners or cities on municipal projects face sometimes where well over budget.

The bids came in, what do we cut? What do we do? Yeah. And that that’s challenging and creates that finger pointing and hardships.

Matt Greller

Steve, I should have asked you this earlier than now, but. What is the design-build approach? What, just in steps what does that include?

Steve Savoie

Yeah, in simplistic terms, I think the methodology that most cities and towns are used to is what I’ll call the traditional approach.

It’s been around for a long time. You hire an architect and engineer. You go through the design process and then you open market, bid it in a public forum, public bidding. And then, it’s really low bid mentality approach at that point. Yep. And quite honestly, sometimes, a city, or it could be, stuck for lack of better terms with a contractor that maybe for whatever reason isn’t the maybe the contractor you wanna work with.

So I say that kind of recap ’cause design-build, specifically with the way Performance Services work. Is that, we have all design and all construction management project manager under one roof in one house. So that we have speaking of sole accountability, we would have perhaps, our, from a contractual basis we there, the city of Rushville has one contract and design-build that’s with the design builder in lieu of kind of the more of a headache version of Kyle.

I see Kyle sitting across the city has a contract with the electrical engineer, the structural engineer, the architect, the construction, the project manager, that, and sometimes the city’s left kind of holding the ball at times, with who’s on first. So design-build kind of eliminates that, eliminates that obstacle and creating that accountability where.

You have one contractor with a design-builder, that design-builder is in charge of all design, all construction. Kind of one finger to point to, Adam, remember a Adam Deetz, he was our project manager during the project. And and the owner the city, the mayor knew that there was, if there was one person that he knew he could call at 7:00 AM be the whatever it was, could have been.

That that’s the sole accountability in lieu of, Hey, can you call your construction guy and “Hey, can you tell the architect we need to change that because this isn’t working? Then can you have them call?” So, we just eliminate that and I think that’s just a big value and a benefit.

Matt Greller

Mayor, you’ve been in the facility now for a little while. Were your top priorities realized? Do you wish you would’ve done anything, you always wish you would’ve done something different in a project like this afterwards?

Mayor Mike Pavey

Yeah. No, I would say, I think just to kinda give you guys a little bit of background we moved into this building.

It was Brian She and myself and the clerk treasurer moved in December of 2019. So, we entered this building right before Covid.

Matt Greller

And and then you had it all to yourself.

Mayor Mike Pavey

Yeah, and that’s really the crazy thing is I’ve told people say, how’d you get so much done? And I think as a result of the work ethic, but also a result of this facility, really it, we didn’t miss a bead here because if we needed six foot to meet, to socially distance, we just met in here.

And so we would spread people out and we would continue to do exactly what we normally did. I was quarantined probably four times, but I quarantined in the mayor’s area because I don’t necessarily have to get out of that area. So it allowed this building. So I’ll take a step back. What Steve’s saying is true is there was the design and immediately we knew what the cost was and that was a great thing because it got us beyond the bad relationship we’d had earlier.

But the other thing that was really important was we broke this building into phases to to get a confidence level of it was gonna work like we hoped it would. And so the lobby you came into this morning and the front entry where, or Kim would sit the waiting area.

And then this floor, except for this room was our first critical piece that we wanted to make sure was functioning because it was the city services and then we had the theater downstairs. It was the another phase, but it was a white box. All we’re doing is turning it over to someone to build it out and Ivy Tech was the exact same.

That was the third phase, another white box. And then this was the council always had meetings at another location. So imagine, in today’s world, packing up everything and going to meet, and the council said, we’d really like to meet in the same place so that it’s convenient and we want a community room that community can use with the technology we think that it needs.

And so this was the, I would say this was the jewel, this was the final treat, if we could get this far. Once we signed that first piece, which was the administration piece, and it went well by the time we were probably 50% into it. We had signed the white box downstairs because we had someone leasing that space.

By the time, probably within two months of signing that one, we signed the Ivy Tech lease. So we were done with it and by the time they were ready to pull out of the remainder of phase one, the council said, “We think this is working and it’s gonna be fine.” And so they signed the contract for this one. So we ended up doing everything, but we had to break it up in phases so that.

One, we were confident that hey it’s, they say it’s gonna cost as much, and it did. They got it done on time and that everything was working really smooth. So, by the time it was all said and done, it was a seamless thing. It was just, if I didn’t tell you it was done in phases or if I didn’t tell anybody in this building, it was done in phases, they probably wouldn’t recognize that.

Matt Greller

What’s been the public perception four or five years into the project? Are they. Pleased do you think?

Mayor Mike Pavey

Yeah, I do. I will tell you, I thought they were gonna run me outta town with pitchforks and flames because everybody’s, oh, we don’t need that. It’s crazy. The mayor’s going out there and just spending all this money.

And hen when we opened the doors and about six weeks into it, you suddenly saw people say, “Oh my gosh, this is nice. We deserve this.” And so then we open this room up. Is open for, we don’t have anything like baby showers or anything like that, but we’ll open it up for, like service organizations to come in.

We’ll open it up for training at different companies like FSLA, will come in and do something or or USLA, we’ll come in and do their training here. There’s a variety of different companies that use this as a training center, and so once they’re in here and once they understand the value I would say, I’m in a small town, so 15% are never gonna what I do. But I don’t think it’s gotten over 15%. So I think we’re good.

Matt Greller

Non-scientific measurement, right? That’s exactly right. Being a city-town nerd that I am, I got here about nine 30 and drove around just to see how things were looking and the town city looks great.

I did notice. Everybody knows Rushville is the place to be in the summer. You’ve got your concert series down in the park, and then you come up the street just a little ways and now you’ve got anchors on both ends almost. Is that intentional?

Mayor Mike Pavey

Very intentional. Yeah. We did.

When we signed up for Stellar and we were successful in Stellar, the thing we targeted and the thing that we were very proud of is we said that if you went up to the top of the. The courthouse and you looked out the window, you could see every single one of our stellar projects that, that’s how tight we wanted it.

We didn’t want it spread throughout the community because we needed to make a core change. And we were able to do that. So yeah, it’s, it has been very intentional. We feel like if we can keep the downtown healthy, then everything spreads out from the downtown. And I’m glad I would go ahead and I’m one of those that picks my own pain.

But we lost a little under a year ago. We lost two buildings downtown, kind of one building. And we ended up buying the adjacent ones to it. And so people ask me usually at the end of this presentation “Ooh, you did it, aren’t you? Aren’t you happy? Isn’t that great? “And I say, “I just got another one to figure out here soon.”

So we’re starting to work on it, and we’re I think, starting to get excited about what the possibilities for that site are. Because we think it is innovative and we think it’s different than. Most towns that you would see of our size being able to try to pull off. So we’re getting ready to see if we have another  one of the cats have nine lives.

See if we continue to pull a rabbit outta the hat on this one. But yeah we’re doing some preliminary stuff to, to see if the idea sell.

Matt Greller

That’s awesome. Steve. How often do you use the project here in Rushville as an example for other communities that you’re. Working with around the state a, a model of what can and be done.

Steve Savoie

Yeah.

I think fairly often, I think, the nimbleness that this project was able to pull off, showcasing the being able to make decisions quick. Having strategic thinking, the phased approach, the design to target methodology. A complicated project, when you renovate a 80 years old is Masonic Lodge.

Mayor Mike Pavey

Oh, at least, yeah.

Steve Savoie

So, an old building. There’s a lot of things that you peel off when you start to get into it. And with our design-build approach and, Performance Services, we’re able to guarantee no change orders we’re taking on. We’re taking on all of the responsibility of the design and the construction. So really this project, I think, to answer your question, I think gets a lot of mileage And, Performance Services is very proud of this project. It is showcased in a lot of our information where we try to, where we try to educate potential clients on the value of the design-build delivery approach.

And with the complexities, both from the design, the type of building, the phased approach, the pretty hard. Budget challenges designing to target budget approach specifically with the past hardship that the city knew that was the limelight was on it. So yeah, I think we, I think it’s one of the projects where the proof’s in the pudding kind of, so to speak, that, and that’s nice to have a physical example of that.

Matt Greller

All right, mayor, as we wrap up here a little bit, you alluded to it in your last comments about the buildings that the city’s recently acquired. Nobody listens to this podcast. So what what’s gonna be on the main drag that’s not here now, 10 years down the road? Oh. What’s the vision for the city?

Mayor Mike Pavey

One of the things that, that we’re working on right now is. A launch center, which will be across the street above the microbrew and that launch center. Like a business incubator type facility? Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, because that’s, I think that that was the natural direction everything was going, and Covid basically accelerated that greatly.

And now you have a lot of people who do work remotely. And some of the times you’ll be in those meetings. Those, whether they be, a zoom meeting and you’ll hear kids in the background and people saying, I just wish I had a place to go to be able to do those. So I think, we are still trying to find our competitive niche and I think that would, will continue to help us.

I think we, we continue to want to integrate art into our downtown. We are getting ready to start a. A trail a biking pedestrian trail that’ll take the Stellar trail and connect it with the Northern trail. We still have, and that I think that’s probably a little maddening for my wife because we still have enough stuff that I go, this is fun.

We are making a difference in people’s lives that if I didn’t feel like that, you’d see me saying, I don’t know. What am I doing? We’re trying to, we’re trying to figure that out, but we still have a lot of projects out here that, that we think that are game changers out here.

So we continue to push. We got Wilkie Park where if we pull that off, that’s across from the farmer’s market. Ready has opened a lot of opportunities for us to continue to be creative and innovative. That probably, quite honestly, without it, we would it would make things a little bit more stale.

Matt Greller

You alluded to it with the COVID comments and remote workers that you’re in this really unique band. I think of communities like Franklin and Shelbyville and Rushville that have seen some really cool stuff happening, small communities, but you’re seeing growth. You’re building a community that has a lot of quality of life, amenities people wanna live here and work remotely or what have you. So it’s really interesting to see and just leave it up to you. Any last comments before we sign off?

Mayor Mike Pavey

Yeah, I say we’re, right now we’re involved in two housing projects that we continue to move forward. We just opened what I think is probably, is the new definition of a rural community center which is a community center that has it has our, it now has a health and fitness, an indoor pool, which first indoor pool in our community.

The high school doesn’t even have one. It has the library, it has food pantry, it has social services, it has daycare, all in that one facility. So what we used to know as a community center was usually a reception hall. And ours is now like I say, the definition of a rural community center is a lot different than it used to be.

We’ve got a safety study being done, a million-dollar safety study being done on Highway Three, that, that holds the possibility of how to travel safer between New Castle and Greensburg, which is the link between 70 and 74. Again, we’ve got a lot of art happening here. We’ve got the building downtown basically a chunk of a city block to do.

So we’ve got a lot of cool stuff that’s happening out here. And it, like I say, it’s it keeps me smiling and optimistic and wanting to come to work. Like I say, I think there’s a lot of. A lot of neat stuff.

Matt Greller

It’s projects like this and communities like this that make our job at Aim fun.

Steve, thanks for all you do for communities around the state, you and Performance Services. Mayor, thank you for joining the podcast. Really pleasure to be here and we’ll see you soon I’m sure.

Thank you.