Cost concerns arise for school project

School wants to confirm costs for Flathead High

A renovation for Flathead High School is on temporary hold, at least until some construction prices are firmed up.

Superintendent Darlene Schottle said it probably will be the middle of April when Flathead High School District trustees get enough information to decide how much of a student commons/food court they can build with the $4.5 million budgeted for the project.

Trustees gave the go-ahead March 14 for a 5,500-square-foot, two-level student commons and food court addition that would provide a new lobby and elevator access to the gym.

But even at that time, project architect Corey Johnson of CTA Architects cautioned that the $100,000 budgeted for demolition was a big unknown.

Last week, Dewey Swank of Swank Enterprises, the school's construction manager for the new Glacier High School and the Flathead High project, told the school board that he also has doubts about cost estimates on mechanical systems and masonry.

With no flex room left in a tight Flathead High construction budget, every penny will count.

The price escalation from initial design to final bid on the Glacier High project was nine percent.

"With no flexibility left in the budget, that's what we don't want to run into now," Schottle said. "We want to be sure that we have built in enough escalation to bid, and we don't overbuild."

Overbuilding would mean the school could run out of money before it finishes the project at Flathead.

Trustees directed Swank to contact individual contractors over the next couple of weeks to get their best projections on the exact work to be done.

Specifically, in the three areas:

-Schottle said Swank and the school agreed that the $100,000 to demolish a portion of the existing school building, where the commons would attach, sounded low.

"We just want to make sure that everything is included in the price," she said. The school needs assurance that debris removal, dumping expenses and other associated costs are included in estimates.

-New mechanical systems such as heating and ventilation will need to be compatible with the existing high school building. Johnson has unearthed schematics for some additions from the past 40 or 50 years, but with the school essentially consisting of 10 buildings built over the past century, some surprises are bound to arise.

-Masonry will need to match up with the existing school walls. Schottle said today's builders more commonly build a masonry layer over a wood frame rather than follow the existing Flathead High design of solid masonry.

The old style is more expensive today.

Because outright construction costs account for $3.34 million of the overall $4.35 million project budget, trustees want more solid numbers before committing to a specific design.

If they need to scale back on what they can build at Flathead, now is the time to make that call.

Reporter Nancy Kimball can be reached at 758-4483 or by e-mail at nkimball@dailyinterlake.com