The Northeastern PreK-12 building, which will be located adjacent to the site of the current South Vienna School, is at the end of the Design Development phase and will soon move to the Construction Document (CD) stage, Kronour said.
“During CD, the final blueprints for the project are created and the district and its construction partners reach a Guaranteed Maximum Price for the cost of the project. This is also when the bidding process begins,” he said.
RELATED: Northeastern resolves budget issues, moves forward with construction
Kronour said even though costs are still somewhat higher than anticipated, a lot has still been reduced, hopefully allowing bidding to begin this fall.
“An additional $2.4 million has been trimmed from the estimates for the NE building, which is currently about $4 million, or 11.9 percent, over the original budget,” he said. “The estimated costs are within the available amount including LFI dollars. We anticipate the bidding process will begin this fall.”
The Kenton Ridge PreK-12 building, which will be located near west and south of the current Kenton Ridge High School, has completed the Schematic Design phase and moved into the Design Development process, Kronour said.
“Thanks to the work done to bring the Northeastern building estimates down, the same changes were also applied to the Kenton Ridge facility and estimates are 8 percent over the original budget,” he said. “The estimated costs are within the available amount including LFI dollars. We anticipate some early site work of putting in a cut-off drain will begin at Kenton Ridge in May.”
RELATED: Coronavirus: Northeastern postpones groundbreaking for new schools
District officials “continue to move forward with this project” as they were able to resolve budget issues by redesigning the project to reduce costs for the new schools in January to move forward with construction that was postponed in July 2019.
“NELSD is committed to constructing buildings that are safe, secure and support learning for students and to making sure that the facilities can be constructed with the funding approved by the community in May 2018,” Kronour said. “Thanks to the diligent work of our construction team over the last few months, the designs for each building meet the educational needs of students and are within the funds available to our district.”
The groundbreaking ceremonies, originally scheduled for May 15, were rescheduled to the fall on a date yet to be determined due to the coronavirus.
“This does not impact the work schedule for the facilities in any way. We will share a new date when we are able to come together as a community to celebrate the ceremony of the groundbreakings,” Kronour said.
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