Contract inked for school repairs

Another round of bids for upcoming Ely school renovations gained board approval on Monday night.

The board voted 5-0, with Rochelle Sjoberg absent, to approve a base bid of $1,703,000 and an add alternate of $51,000, submitted by Max Gray Construction.

The firm won the contract against two other bidders for the latest component of what’s been dubbed the Phase II Completion Project.

While bids for new windows were approved last month, the award this week was for various interior renovations to include

• New interior classroom doors (Memorial Building);

• Complete interior classroom doors (Washington Building);

• Chemistry lab renovations; • Art classroom renovations; • Campus-wide renovation of student bathrooms;

• The addition of an individual bathroom (Memorial);

• Additional special education bathroom (Washington).

The various components were all part of the district’s original plans for better than $20 million in renovations that were completed last year, but taken out of the project because cost overruns.

The district has about $5.5 million available, in large part because of action by state lawmakers in 2023, to fill the gap.

Overall, the district has bid out just over $4 million in work, which includes construction bids as well as soft costs including architectural and engineer fees and a five percent contingency fund.

Construction is set for this summer and superintendent Anne Oelke said she is “chomping at the bit” to get “scheduling going, mixing construction with summer school schedules and the all class reunion.”

While construction costs bid out so far are about $100,000 over what was budgeted, engineer Karl Larsen of Widseth, the firm contracted by the district for architectural services, told the board “we’re sitting pretty well considering where we were a couple years ago when bids came in.”

In 2021, district officials were thrown for a loop when cost overruns attributed in part to the Covid-19 pandemic forced them to shelve parts of the original project.

“Costs have stabilized quite nicely for this project,”said Larsen.

Yet to be bid out for the project are various classroom renovations and parking lot improvements. The district has budgeted $700,000 for these items according to a project budget sheet included as part of Monday’s meeting agenda.

Plans call for the work to be completed over the summer and finished in time for the start of the 2024-25 school year.