The Madison Elementary School project is moving forward after the School Board at a June 23 special meeting unanimously authorized negotiations with Haley Builders for a contract not to exceed $4.1 million.
Four bids were put forward at a bid opening held June 19. The lowest, from Haley, was for $4,269,000, and the highest, from A. D. Whittaker Construction, was for $4,454,000.
A fifth bid came in late and was disqualified from consideration.
Schools Director of Maintenance and Construction Geoffrey Honan told the School Board that the MES project needed to be “as close to $4.1 million as we can to keep within the overall budget of the $25 million we have allocated for school renovations.”
At a question from Board Vice Chairman Nancy Carson about the odds of getting Haley’s bid down to the $4.1 target, Randy Jones, CEO of the supervising architecture and engineering firm OWPR, said, “It’s less than 4 percent. We’ll get there.”
The reductions are expected to result from value engineering, the process of finding lower-cost options for components of a project without altering the function those components are supposed to fulfill.
Cost issues have dogged…
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