At What Cost?
Plans for new locker rooms and fitness center at Emporia High School stall
By Scott Rochat
Thursday, September 28, 2006
A multimillion-dollar improvement to Emporia High School was put on hold by the Emporia school board Wednesday after bids came in much higher than expected.
Rinner Construction of Topeka put in the low bid of $3,420,000 to build a new fitness center addition at the high school and remodel the locker rooms. The project had been estimated at $2.2 million by architect Dave Emig in February.
In response, board members voted to wait two weeks before awarding any bids. That gives the school district’s capital committee time to meet on Monday, discuss the proposal and its long-term effects and then inform the board.
“What they decide to do will affect all our other capital outlay projects,” spokeswoman Nancy Horst said.
In a letter to the board, Emig said he was disappointed at the new price tag. He said the price difference may have been the result of rising material costs, underestimates of the renovation work and the related mechanical systems and possibly a lack of competitive bids from subcontractors.
“I believe the project will significantly improve the existing locker rooms and provide new opportunities in physical education,” Emig wrote. “If there is a way the district can balance the increased cost with their long-range planning, I recommend that we proceed with a contract with Rinner Construction. Prices will not be lower in the future unless we severely scale back the project.”
In addition to approving the project or scaling it back, the board could also split the fitness center and the remodeling into two separate projects. Any changes to the project would require rebidding it, however, which would add another 60 days to the project. That’s a problem, because the district was already working to a tight schedule. As part of the bid, contractors were asked to have everything done by July 13 — before the start of school.
The only other bid came from Markowitz Builders of Emporia, which bid $3,742,000, with the first part of the project to be done by March 15. Any delay would trigger a discount, with the bid falling to $3,604,000 if everything took until July 13 to finish.
The school board will consider the bids again Oct. 11.
In other action, the board:
F Awarded bids on a one-ton service truck to John North Ford for $30,952, while bids for a three-quarter ton truck went to Emporia Motors for $29,800.
F Heard a report on the district’s new centralized enrollment, which allowed parents to either enroll their students by mail or come to a single site to go through the paperwork. Out of 1,705 parents surveyed, Horst said, 91 percent gave the experience a good rating. Most of the remaining 9 percent said they preferred to hold enrollment at their own neighborhood schools.