By Jackie Ryan
As the OVA board focuses its attention on the Berger, it will be evaluating options in the context of Oakmont’s overall facility needs, including the impact, process and cost of relocating some 500 annual member activities.
The need for urgent replacement of the 63-year-old facility’s HVAC system has triggered discussions on advancing known maintenance and asset replacement, or reserve study work, at the same time, as well as the potential for a modest increase in the Berger footprint to improve capacity and functionality.
At a June 8 town hall meeting, OVA President Steve Spanier said construction on Oakmont’s central hub could create a “pretty severe hardship for the community. When faced with a decision like that, it just makes sense that the Board think about what other work could or should be done (at the same time).”
Related: VIDEO – 6-8-26: Berger Center Planning Town Hall
Christel Antone, general manager, said staff has already begun mapping out coordination and scheduling of multiple groups that would be displaced by construction, leveraging both internal facilities and offsite opportunities to minimize disruption. “Our commitment
is to plan early, communicate often and work collaboratively with each affected group to develop a solution that allows the community activities to continue during any project.”
While the OVA board has made no decisions on the scope of the Berger project, directors will be taking a deeper dive into a proposal from Energy Systems Group (ESG), a design-build firm, which recently presented three possible scopes of work for the Berger. Tier 1 deals only with the failing HVAC system and code upgrades, while tier 2 adds on reserve study items currently scheduled over the next four years. Tier 3 adds a 1,000-square-foot vestibule that would be multi-functional.
Spanier said tier 3 would house 427 members, or almost 10% of the Oakmont population, comparable to the main gathering spaces of similar communities. The Berger presently houses 250. The ESG proposal is currently under review, with the board and legal team finding “some aspects of the contract unacceptable.” The areas of concern will be put in a red-line document to discuss with ESG before any decisions are made and whether to engage ESG in the process, he said. “It’s important to emphasize that we have not selected a scope. We haven’t selected (a tier). So we don’t have a schedule for when the Berger is going to be unavailable.”
He said the board will also consider its decision through the lens of other parallel initiatives, all of which are ongoing at this time. Those include the possible purchase of the building where OVA rents administrative office space, negotiated changes in the golf course lease agreement with CourseCo, and needed work at the Central Activity Center pool deck and cabana.
“Taken together, these are all considerations that the board really needs to think about before deciding exactly how we should engage or whether we should engage with ESG,” said Spanier. “The schedules of all these projects align reasonably enough, so that we can get at least a good estimate of costs for all and figure out if and how we can afford to do them.”
Calling for community patience, Spanier said the project is “very, very complicated with a lot of contingencies” and unknowns, even if the board tackles only tier 1. “It will be crucial for the community to be somewhat agile and forgiving,” he said. “At this point, the only thing we’re pretty certain of is that whatever we say will probably change.”