On Thursday, the Tyrone Area School District opened bids for its middle\/high school renovation and expansion project which is scheduled to begin construction sometime next month.
\nThe bid opening is only the beginning of a process which leaves school board members and administrators with a number of decisions to make before the work actually begins.
\nConcerns have been expressed the project would come in substantially over even high-end estimates for the project. That figure was listed at just over $10.3 million according to information listed in planning documents forwarded to the state\u2019s Department of Education.
\nIn July, Dwight Knouse of Hayes Large Architects informed the board the bids could be $300,000 in excess of the high-end numbers. He said the reason for the possibility of high bids centered on the increase in cost and demand for certain building materials.
\nSuperintendent Dr. William Miller had expressed concern the bids might even come in \u201cmillions higher.\u201d Those fears were alleviated yesterday when the bids were actually opened. However, Dr. Miller expressed continuing concern regarding the project\u2019s costs.
\n\u201cThe bids came in as expected and that is high,\u201d said Miller. \u201cThe bids are pretty much in line with what (Dwight Knouse) had expected. It all depends on what deducts or additions are taken to the base bids.
\n\u201cIt was our hope, just a wish, that it wouldn\u2019t come in as high as it has,\u201d said Miller. \u201cThe high school\/elementary school project (in the mid-90s) came in several million under the estimates. We hit the market at the right time.
\n\u201cTimes have changed significantly,\u201d said Miller. \u201cI am disappointed, but it\u2019s not millions over.\u201d
\nMiller was asked if the costs, as reflected by the bids that came in, would affect the project to the point where the district would reconsider it.
\n\u201cI really can\u2019t even comment on that, there are a number of deducts we have to look at,\u201d said Miller as he considered options which could keep cost down.
\n\u201cEven looking at all that (the options) I\u2019m still disappointed,\u201d said Miller. \u201cThese costs are never going to go down.\u201d
\nMiller said administrators planned to meet today to continue discussions on the project. The school board has scheduled an open meeting to discuss the bids among other business at 7 p.m. on Sept. 7.
\nEarlier this week, the board decided to borrow $10 million to finance the project after originally planning to use cash from its capital reserves. The board decided using a bond note gave the district the potential for saving money. The type of financing the district is using will also give it an option of getting out of the financing quickly if it\u2019s determined in the future the market isn\u2019t advantageous to the district.
\nThe project is expected to take about 16 months to complete an addition which will increase the square footage of the building by 25 percent. The move will allow for fifth grade students to be moved from the elementary school creating a fifth through eighth grade population at the middle school level.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On Thursday, the Tyrone Area School District opened bids for its middle\/high school renovation and expansion project which is scheduled to begin construction sometime next month. The bid opening is only the beginning of a process which leaves school board members and administrators with a number of decisions to make before the work actually begins. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-44085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44085\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}