While the old Calvada Eye buildings are rapidly being demolished, Nye County commissioners are making plans to build a new administration building at the site.

Charles Abbott and Associates, the company that runs the Pahrump Building and Safety Department, was given a contract Tuesday to act as construction manager for the administration building. The fee will be not more than 5 percent of the design and construction cost.

Charles Abbott will help in providing construction management, attend preliminary design meetings, attend pre-bid meetings, assist in selecting a contractor, evaluate designs and construction proposals and serve as contract manager.

CAA Regional Director Buster Scholl will supervise the project while licensed structural engineer Ed Chock will be the registered professional in charge.

Nye County Manager Rick Osborne said Scholl will research costs of different types of buildings, either stick-built, modular or steel.

Commissioner Butch Borasky asked if there was a conflict of interest between having the same company that issues the building permits and conducts the inspections also serving as project manager. Osborne said that wasn't a conflict.

Commissioner Joni Eastley also had a concern.

"I'm always really hesitant to approve 5 percent of any big, construction project with the total cost being unknown at this time. We don't have an estimate at this time. This is like a big blank check to me. It's 5 percent of something we can't identify," she said.

Osborne said that was the same language used in hiring CAA as construction manager of the justice center expansion at 1520 E. Basin Ave. Contractors began work on constructing that project Tuesday, tearing out the prisoner's walkway between the jail and the courthouse and constructing a temporary one.

Charles Abbott and Associates was hired last summer to be the construction manager of the justice center addition -- which includes two new courtrooms and a sheriff's evidence locker -- at a 5 percent fee, which was later reduced to 4 percent. That amounted to $190,846, or 4 percent of the $4.7 million contract awarded to JVC Architects and C&H Construction after a change order.

The county allocated $2 million from the payment equal to taxes received from the U.S. Department of Energy for construction of a new administration building. Osborne said there is about $1.7 million left in that fund.

The plan is to use a design-build team, an architect and contractor together.

Charles Abbott was hired to perform a review of the existing Calvada buildings to determine whether they could be rebuilt.

The company determined the buildings weren't worth salvaging, as the property was below the flood plain. Even if a variance were granted to build in the flood hazard area, demolishing the existing buildings and rebuilding would give the county two new buildings that are completely code compliant with full warranties, Scholl stated in a report issued in July 2008.

In the interim, employees from Nye County administration and the nuclear waste repository project office are set to move into the former Nevada JobConnect modular building on the Calvada Eye May 26. Osborne said that building is small for all the employees that will be working there. But he told commissioners they could save over $100,000 annually by not having to lease office space on Frontage Road for administration and on Basin Road for the nuclear waste repository project office.