Hello everyone,
AHSTW Community School District is excited to announce that our 2023 Building and Renovation project is set to begin as bids have been accepted and contracts are being signed. The project has taken us time to finalize, but we are extremely excited to begin moving forward this spring.
The initial design estimated our project cost to be $12,900,000.00. This cost was brought to our communities through a referendum vote in the fall of 2021. We were extremely thankful the support as the referendum passed allowing us to engage in and finalize the full design process.
The process allowed us the opportunity to add five new classrooms on the west side of our high school facility to help us relocate our Industrial Technology, Family and Consumer Science, Agriculture, Business Education, and High School Music and Band classrooms. The new construction also allows for the renovation of the interior sections of the high school creating five new classroom spaces along with office space for our high school and intermediate guidance counselors, as well as our instructional coaches from our teacher leadership program.
In addition to the above projects, AHSTW Community School District will install LED lighting throughout our facility creating a cleaner more efficient light. This includes our elementary and middle school sections of the building. Substantial renovations to our facility will also require us to upgrade our fire safety system and we will do so by installing a fire suppression system across the PK-12 facility.
As the design process concluded in January, we requested bids for project. We understood material costs had increased since the inception of the project and we anticipated a potential increase in overall costs. The anticipated increases were realized after bid submission. At that time, we evaluated our options moving forward and decided to reject bids associated with portions of the project and to rebid those sections with the electrical portion of the project, as no bids were received for electrical services.
Our second bidding session, in January and February, provided us time to review various funding mechanisms in the event costs remained over the $12,900,000.00 referendum. In late February, the process concluded and we were able to realize a cost savings of nearly $750,000.00 from the first bidding process, but the total project remained over the original amount with the project now costing a little more than $16,000,000.00.
Due to our solid financial standing, AHSTW Community School District is able to support our project at the new amount and will do so with the support of Physical Plant and Equipment Levy [PPEL]. Please know the use of the PPEL funds will not impact our tax rate at all, as the levy amount of $1.00 / thousand dollars of taxable valuation is already in place after the Voter Approved PPEL election during the 2020-2021 school year.
In the end, I am excited to share that the construction portion of the project is beginning and you will see physical signs soon!
Please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have on our building project and get ready for updates!
Mr. Darin Jones
Superintendent
AHSTW Community School District
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