Tom Tourville

MARQUETTE — The Marquette Board of Light and Power Board of Directors held a special meeting on Tuesday where it awarded the Marquette Energy Center sound retrofit project to international company SLR Consulting.

Innova Global Ltd., an engineering and construction firm, was initially set to complete the project, which aims to mitigate noises and vibrations emanating from the MEC, however the company was placed in receivership on April 1 after it went bankrupt.

Innova Global had almost finished an engineering package for the BLP before it declared bankruptcy. The BLP has been working with the receiver company, Pricewaterhouse-Coopers Inc., to obtain the package — which was recently received, BLP officials said.

“We now have the engineering package and data from PWC but had to find another group to help move forward with the project,” said BLP Director Tom Carpenter. “In this case we got a little lucky. SLR Consulting hired four former Innova employees, including the employees that were working on the Marquette Energy Center project. They’re willing to take on the project and help the Board of Light and Power finish it.”

The BLP already paid Innova Global $180,000, 10% of the project’s first phase, which covered most of the engineering part. The proposal from SLR Consulting was roughly $200,000, Carpenter said.

“This is not in addition to any money we’ve already spent,” he said. “It still fits in with that original $1.8 million that we approved to Innova that we didn’t spend.”

Innova Global was retained by the BLP to assess noises and vibrations believed to be coming from the MEC, which is adjacent to the BLP’s main office along Wright Street. Shortly after operations began at the center, over 20 Marquette Township residents submitted written complaints about the noises and vibrations.

Staff from Innova Global conducted a study near the MEC and residential areas to quantify the sound levels of each source. The company discovered that the major low-frequency noise contributors are largely from the building walls and roof of the engine hall, while the high-frequency noises were coming from the radiators.

Innova Global was supposed to be retrofitting the existing walls and roof of the MEC with a heavier design that would help keep the sound inside the building. Construction was anticipated to be completed by mid-July.

Currently, there isn’t a known timeline as to when the project will be completed. However, Carpenter said SLR Consulting believes it’ll take roughly 10 weeks to finish once started.

Carpenter said the building part of the project has been sub-contracted to Universal Builders.

“They took all the original analysis and ran it through their logs to confirm what Innova found. And they found the same thing. They’re comfortable it’s going to work,” Carpenter said, adding that lowering the frequencies by four decibals is the target.

BLP board chairman Tom Tourville said the BLP is fortunate Innova Global declared bankruptcy before more money was spent.

“I mean call it pure luck if you will, but when Innova’s parent company declared bankruptcy by pure luck we were in the right place. We weren’t too far in. The money we already spent with Innova, we got our results from that. So I think that was very beneficial for us,” he said. “SLR (Consulting), by the way, they’re a global company, and what gives me confidence with this is they’re going to stand behind their targets.”