Swank gets contract for new Cayuse gym project

Swank Enterprises will build Cayuse Prairie School’s new gym.

That’s the decision after an early morning school board meeting Wednesday. Trustees voted to award the contract to Swank for $1.725 million.

Five other companies, all from Montana, bid on the project, district clerk Heather Mumby said.

Swank’s bid was lowest, “enough that they were the obvious choice,” she said.

The bid includes building a new, 7,818-square-foot gymnasium and performing arts center, a music room and convertible classroom off the gym, two new classrooms in the school’s south wing and a new parking lot by the gym.

Swank expects to break ground in about two weeks, after students are out of school. If all goes according to schedule, the building will be finished this fall.

“We want to have everything wrapped up Nov. 30,” Mumby said. “We want our first major event [in the new gym] to be the Christmas program.”

Christmas programs in the current gym were a powerful argument in support of Cayuse Prairie’s bond issue in last November’s election.

School officials and trustees described programs performed in shifts because there isn’t room for all the students, their families and community members in the existing gym.

The school district also qualified last fall for a Qualified School Construction Bond grant, one-time-only federal stimulus money that will give Cayuse Prairie very low interest on the bonds.

The need and the low interest rate helped sway voters, and in November they approved a $1.95 million bond issue for the project.

The project’s primary focus is the gym and performing arts center, which will be open to the community. But if there is time and money, Swank will build the classrooms as well.

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com.