Mars School Board awards contracts for elementary school renovation
ADAMS TWP — After finances caused a delay earlier this year, the Mars Area School Board moved forward with a multimillion dollar renovation that will transform the district’s elementary school.
Board members during a meeting Tuesday, Oct. 14, unanimously voted to award a series of contracts related to the project based on recommendations from project managers Thomas & Williamson.
The awards included construction contracts for general construction, roofing, food service equipment, fire protection, plumbing, HVAC and electrical.
The combined value of all contract awards totals just under $21.4 million, with Thomas Construction’s general construction contract accounting for about $14.2 million of that number.
Those figures are a far cry from what was originally presented to the board in the spring.
In late May, officials had asked Thomas & Williamson to rebid the project after it came in at $23.9 million, well over the budgeted amount.
The project is still about $1.8 million over budget, according to the district, but superintendent Mark Gross said the administration is satisfied with the decision.
“Certainly, we were worried with $4 million over, so we rebid and we’re pretty happy with where it is now,” he said. “It is what it is. It’s the cost of building now. It’s just good to have it behind us, and now we’re ready to start moving on getting that project started, so we’re excited.”
Mars’ business manager, Debbie Brandstetter, said the district plans to secure a $10 million bond issue for project funding before the end of the year. A vote on that, she said, will most likely occur in November.
While Thomas & Williamson can now begin notifying contract award recipients, Gross said there is no exact timeline for when groundbreaking would begin.
“The goal would be to get started as soon as possible,” Gross added. “We don’t have a date yet, so over the next seven to 10 days, we’ll start talking about the awards and a clearer timeline.”
One of the decisions that officials made was to add gym divider curtains to the general construction contract worth $21,000.
Redwood Construction Service was awarded the roofing contract worth $590,000. Bova Corp received a $403,589 contract for food service equipment.
Vrabel Plumbing Company received a $220,200 contract for fire protection and a $1.3 million contract for plumbing. The $2.61 million HVAC award went to Prontotech. Finally, the electrical construction contract worth $1.9 million was given to Allegheny City Electric.
Some members of the board posed questions surrounding cost savings and the benefits of the decision to briefly delay the project.
Project manager Jon Thomas emphasized that it was an optimal decision.
“I think that the key to the number coming down, though, was we had a lot more competitiveness inside the contracts than we had back in May,” he told the board.
