Plans for spending the $36 million bond voters approved in May are underway at the Columbus Municipal School District.
During its regular meeting Tuesday, the board of trustees unanimously approved a standard agreement with architecture firm PryorMorrow to move forward with planning the bond-funded facility upgrades. The firm discussed timelines with the board during an afternoon work session ahead of the meeting.
“Several of these projects are not going to be able to be completed during the summer, so you will see some construction during the fall of 2025,” Jose Arellano, managing principal architect with PryorMorrow, told the board. “This is where we will need a lot of input from (the board) and the school as to how we take care of that in the most efficient way.”
The next step in the process is having engineers and other professionals visit the sites to help facilitate the construction process, Arellano said. Then in December, the board will review a schematic design package, which will include basic design concepts for the project, construction dates and cost estimates.
“We’ll have a better estimate of construction costs at that time,” he said. “Once you approve it, then we’ll go back for what’s called design development. We’ll get into material specifications and more detailed information on the actual design.”
That will probably be around February, Arellano said. Projects for the first phase of construction will be advertised in March and April, and then bids will open in May.
Board member Telisa Young asked Arellano if the board would be notified before each project is put up for bid.
The board will have to give approval for each project before it’s advertised, he said. There will be a complete set of documents for each of the three construction phases that require approval. Those will be presented at the March, May and October board meetings, he said.
But before any of that can happen, Arellano said it’s imperative to have a plan for relocating students during construction when necessary.
‘From a good bid to a great bid’
The first phase of facility updates will use about $9 million to update safety measures, install a sprinkler system and repair the student parking lot at Columbus High School.
The second, expected to cost $19.8 million, will address issues at the Sale, Stokes-Beard and Cook elementary campuses, including upgrading life safety measures like fire alarms. This phase also includes building a new external gymnasium at Stokes-Beard, where the cafeteria currently doubles as a gym.
The third phase will make additions and corrections at the CHS athletic complex, including renovating the field house, replacing the large parking lot and making additions compliant to Title IX standards. It is expected to cost $10 million.
The board discussed the timeline for replacing the parking lot at the athletic complex. Board Vice-President Robert Smith said it was his understanding the district could “join in” on the paving Falcon Construction is already doing in Columbus as a part of the city’s upgrade plan.
Board President Cynthia Brown told The Dispatch that doing so may help save the district money in the long run.
“It was said that if we joined during that time, their machines and equipment would be out there,” she said. “So possibly we would get better prices if we did it during that time that the city was doing the streets and the company was already in the area.”
Young said she wasn’t sure if it would be legal to go with the same contract as the city without first bidding it out.
“We’re a governmental entity, so why can’t we?” Smith asked Board Attorney Chris Hemphill. “The light and water department, they joined in with the city to get it at a cheaper price, so from the school standpoint, why can’t we join in?”
Hemphill said he wasn’t positive about the legality. But bidding out the project would be a win for the district regardless, he said.
“If we bid it and somebody underbids Falcon (Construction), that’s to your benefit anyways,” he said “What the prediction and hope was by joining the same project was that Falcon would already be mobilized. They would have the equipment in here … and you get a better bid. If someone comes in and underbids them, then you … went from a good bid to a great bid.”
City Engineer Kevin Stafford said the roads around the athletic complex are already included in the city’s repaving plan, which will last through spring 2025.
“(The district) won’t be joining directly with the city,” Stafford told The Dispatch. “What they would be doing though is … going to bid at the same time the city’s work is going on. … With the economic scale of the contractors already going to be over there doing the work, they could look to potentially gain some savings by going ahead and going to bid with that while the city’s paving is going on.”
McRae is a general assignment and education reporter for The Dispatch.
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