SOLON- They can move the dirt, but they can’t lay any pavement.
The Solon Community School District Board of Education approved an $833,000 bid from Peterson Contractors Inc. (PCI) of Reinbeck for excavation and earthwork in connection with the construction of a new middle school and a center for the performing arts addition to the high school.
But the district received no bids for the paving portion of the project, which was also scheduled to be awarded at a special meeting March 30.
That caused a little bit of concern among school board members, but not as much as the news that the overall project, to be funded by a $25.5 million bond issue approved by voters in September of 2014, has inflated to an estimated cost of $28.5 million.
Those numbers and the bid results were presented to the board by representatives of Story Construction, the firm hired by the district to serve as construction manager of the facilities project.
While the construction of the two buildings is being treated as one large project for the district, the identification of bidders was separated into two bidding periods- one for the earthwork and paving and another for the remainder of the work.
The paving and concrete walks section will now be folded into the second planned bidding process, scheduled to close at the end of April.
Board members approved the bid from PCI for earthwork, but only after discussing the lack of paving bids and the re-estimated costs, which Story delivered after the district’s spring break.
Only two bids were received for the excavation work, and board members ended up having to dismiss one- from Ricklefs Excavating in Anamosa- due to irregularities.
“Their words did not match the numbers,” said Story Construction project manager Randy Johnson.
After reviewing the bid with construction trade association Master Builders of Iowa and legal counsel, it was decided the irregularities in the bid could not be waived.
“She told me in written communication ‘Do not get involved in this bid,'” Solon Superintendent Sam Miller said of his correspondence with a district legal representative.
Near the end of the meeting, board members passed a motion to not consider the Ricklefs bid.
That left PCI’s bid, and Johnson indicated the two bids were very close to each other and both well under previously estimated costs.
“Our budget estimate was for $935,000, so this was a little over $100,000 less, so very positive,” Johnson said.
“If this sets a trend, it’d be a beautiful thing,” said board president Dick Schwab. “If this had come in (at) $1.2 million, we’d have a major issues.”
But some board members found it troubling to have no bidders for the paving portion and revised estimates that pushed the total costs beyond the borrowing ability of the bond issue.
“I think we have major issues right now,” said board member Tim Brown. “I’m not comfortable accepting bids or excluding bids until I have a better feel for where we’re going.”
Miller pointed out that if the board accepted the PCI bid, contracts could be sent out immediately and the company could mobilize and be moving dirt on the middle school site by mid-April, starting the overall project on time.
The middle school is scheduled for completion by Aug. 1, 2016. The anticipated completion for the performing arts center is Dec. 15, 2016.
Johnson indicated the lack of a bid for paving was mostly a scheduling problem for the contractors who expressed an interest. Of the contractors at a pre-bid meeting, he said, several ended up obtaining large projects that wouldn’t allow them to meet the timeline.
“We didn’t get anybody to submit a proposal on this,” Johnson said. “It was something that isn’t the end of the world for the project, because that was later in the schedule anyway.” The pavement bids could be combined with the remainder of the bids for construction and re-bid, he said.
“When I hear this, it makes me question the overall timing that we’re on,” board member Dean Martin commented. “Are we hitting the market at the right time? Are we going to run into similar problems with bid package number two?”
Story Construction’s Jamie Rochleau tried to ease the concerns, noting the district was in effect acting as its own general contractor and running into problems the general contractor would normally experience.
Rochleau said it is common in the current construction climate to only attract two bidders. Iowa is flush with construction projects right now, he said, where even only a few years ago the Solon project might have garnered interest from multiple companies.
The second bid letting consists of over 20 individual bid packages, each specific to a type of work needed for the project, from the typical electrical and mechanical to the more specified theatrical rigging and athletic flooring, with everything else in between.
Earlier in March, Story Construction was still working to put a monetary value to each and every feature put in the plans by Struxture Architects, expecting a more precise estimated cost as a result.
That result- reportedly $28.5 million- would be $3 million over the bond issue budget. While board members identified over $1 million in potential savings through less-expensive alternate bids earlier in the month, it led board member Brown to question, “What’s costing us this $3 million?”
“A lot more clarity,” Rochleau responded. Previously, he said, the drawings on which Story based cost estimates were not complete, and as more details were provided, the expected expenses became clearer.
“As you go through things, you just end up discovering and finding more things,” Rochleau said. In previous discussions, they hadn’t anticipated items like acoustical treatments in the gymnasium, for example.
“You try to cover the unknown with a contingency amount,” he explained.
While the excavation bid came in under budget by 11 percent, a more realistic expectation for the remaining bids would be to come in at five or six percent under budget, he said.
But board member Dan Coons asked what happens if the remaining bids come in and the district is $3 million over.
“If we’re over budget, we either have to identify more money, or cut,” Miller said. “Or both.”
Miller indicated the district has Physical Plant and Equipment Levy (PPEL) and sales tax revenues (Secure an Advanced Vision for Education, or SAVE) funds available to help finance the construction projects, although the district has attempted to keep costs within the framework of the bond issue.
“Even if we end up $3 million over on this project, we can find, either through cutting or other sources, $3 million,” Schwab said. “What we do is restrict what we can do on the fourth attendance center.”
Part of the long-term facilities plan for the district is to remodel the existing middle school into an intermediate elementary center after the opening of the new middle school using PPEL and SAVE funds.
“We’ve been trying to keep that powder dry,” Schwab said.
“The good news for Solon is that we do have options,” Miller said. “A lot of school districts that are in this situation, that don’t have options. Their only option is to cut.”
Miller said the district would learn more after bids for the rest of the construction project are received.
“We’ll learn a lot of things at 2 o’clock on April 28 as far as not only this project, but it’s probably going to tell us a lot about our next project,” he said.