“Good, strong bids came back and let the school put back some money into it,” Kuhn said. “We bought back what was needed and what we knew we needed.”
Phase 3 begins at Clark-Shawnee construction site, superintendent says
The district made an assessment of what they wanted to build and were given an estimate from the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission (OFCC) that needed to pass in a bond issue, according to Kuhn.
Voters approved a $37 million bond issue in August 2017 to build a new elementary school and renovate the middle/high school. The state will cover about 30% of the cost of the project - about $15 million.
The bond issue passed for a fixed amount, Kuhn said, but over time inflation became a concern.
“We were worried the inflation may affect the ability to put in everything we want,” Kuhn said.
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The district then made an alternative list of features they wanted to add back to the school if additional funds were available.
Kuhn said if estimates came back too high, they would add those items to a “wish list.”
Pearson Construction, the district’s contractor company, sent out their estimates to different sub-contractors who then bid on the projects.
Clark-Shawnee’s “bids came back in lower than the estimate,” which allowed them to “add things back in from the wish list,” Kuhn said.
Kuhn said the district expects to have the middle/high school renovations completed by the start of the 2020-21 school year and the elementary school completed by March 2021.
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