Section 16. The director shall appoint, for each project under the jurisdiction of the office of project management, a project manager, who shall oversee all planning, design and construction of the project or provide appropriate assistance to others as enumerated below. No person shall be appointed or employed as a project manager unless at the time thereof said person shall be registered by the commonwealth as an architect or professional engineer under chapter 112 or shall have a professional degree in a field providing equivalent experience and shall have at least 5 years experience in the construction and supervision of construction of buildings. Project managers employed by the bureau shall be exempt from section 9A of chapter 30 and chapter 31.

The terms, conditions and duration of their employment shall be established by the director subject to appropriation and the building projects to which the project manager has been assigned by the director. The project manager shall:

(1) Assist and make recommendations to using agencies as to real property acquisition in anticipation of construction;

(2) Assist by reviewing and making recommendations to using agencies as to the study, programs or other planning documents for the project;

(3) Participate as a non-voting member of the designer selection board panel during the designer selection process for the particular building project to which the project manager has been assigned;

(4) Represent the using agency in the designer selection, design and construction phases of the building project, the project manager having exclusive authority to make decisions in these areas, except as provided in sections 17 to 21, inclusive, after consultation with the using agency and consideration, before such decisions are made, of using agency recommendations;

(5) During the design stage of each project to which the project manager has been assigned, review and comment on said design or verify that said design has been reviewed by the authorities charged by law with enforcement responsibility, in order to insure that the design complies with all federal and state laws, rules, regulations and codes; insure to the extent feasible that the design is such as to specify a project that (a) can be accomplished within the appropriation or authorization for that project or within the project cost limits specified by the appropriation or authorization, and (b) can be accomplished in accordance with (i) any study or program which must be prepared in accordance with section 59 or (ii) any other pre-design document which must be prepared in accordance with any other statute, appropriation or authorization or administrative directive consistent therewith; no building project shall be allowed to proceed to the construction stage until such reviews have been accomplished and compliance confirmed or certified;

(6) Insure the preparation of time schedules which shall serve as control standards for monitoring performance of building projects; and

(7) Assist in project evaluation including, but not limited to, written evaluations of the performance of the architect, engineers, contractors and other personnel, and evaluation of construction techniques and procurement mechanisms.