Board set to approve bid for pre-K classroom part of capital improvement project
by Dan McClelland
The Tupper Lake Board of Education and most of its administrative staff met briefly last Monday afternoon for a presentation, via Zoom, with Kyle Smith of the district’s architectural firm, CS Arch, on several pieces of the unfolding $20 million plus capital improvement project.
Superintendent of Schools Jaycee Welsh said Mr. Smith’s briefing would involve “some of the changes” the district is looking at to move the project forward.
Mr. Smith began by telling the board they received on February 18 comments on the project from the state education department and their team is preparing responses to those comments, for submittal to “state ed” this week.
He indicated the schedule, as detailed earlier, is on track, with the goal to go out to bid on more parts of the project by the end of this month.
Mrs. Welsh said she welcomed that news.
Showing a slide, Mr. Smith said his firm went out to bid on one of the first parts of the project on February 20 and received two bids from two contractors. The work involves the L.P. Quinn Elementary School and plans to improve the pre-K classrooms Nos. 106 and 107 and other classrooms too. One bid was submitted by Akros Management and one from Murnane Associates. Akros was the low bidder- on both the base bid and two alternatives, he said.
“I’m happy to announce we are capable of awarding both the base bid and both alternatives to Akros. We spent the last couple of days speaking with the low bidder.” He said his firm has worked with Akros on two school projects since 2023.
“They did a fantastic job on those and I know they will do a fantastic job here,” he assured the board members.
He said after the post-bid meetings they now recommend the board accept the Akros bids.
He told the officials the company was “comfortable with its bid submission” and it included a $5,000 bid allowance to cover any change orders. He called the allowance “a healthy amount,” given the size of that particular portion of the overall capital project.
Mr. Smith said too the Akros company has already submitted the various insurance and other paperwork required for the bid to be awarded.
He said both CS Arch and the project manager, Schoolhouse Construction, both thoroughly reviewed its bid to make sure it fully complies with the work bid out.
“As of today, I am recommending to you to award (the contract) to the apparent low-bidder,” he told the board members. A board motion to do that followed.
“We’ve also met recently with several members of the school administration on the additional cost of the site package” part of the project, which involves the track and field complex at L.P. Quinn. “It is well over a million dollars higher” than anticipated.
He said while the overall project fell within the budget, “the site costs went over the maximum cost allowance,”- as determined by the state education department. He explained that when a piece of a capital project exceeds what is determined by state officials to be over the maximum cost allowance, “it no longer becomes aid-able” for state funds.
“Becoming aware of this CS Arch, once the estimates came in ,reached out to the Schoolhouse firm to identify the areas why it went over and to work on ways to” reduce the million dollars and keep it on the scope that the school district (residents) voted on.
In the renovation plan for the Rotary field were additions of track venues including steeplechase, the shot put area, long jump and pole vault. He said they weren’t in the original vote on the project but added later.
Those additions amounted to about $300,000 in costs, he noted. A follow-up approval for those additions came from the state education department in recent days.
He said too because the site work at the track and field complex covered “over an acre,” it required by state law some costly surface water drainage additions, including additional storm water facilities on site, which included the construction of some underground chambers to capture temporarily and slow the flow of water from the site. That would have added $500,000 to the track portion of the project, not in the original budget.
He said with their consultants they were able to reduce the project area on the track site to less than one acre- as of just that day. That eliminated the required and costly surface water work, according to Mr. Smith.
The last piece of the cost-reducing puzzle, he said, “was there a way to come up with a savings with the planned bleachers and press box?”
“We looked at a number of different solutions.”
The original goal of the district, he said, was to remove the elevated area with the retaining wall (on the home team side of the field) down to grade and to add a press box.
The existing bleachers were going to be moved to the visiting team side of the field to replace dilapidated seating there.
“We reached out to the grandstand manufacturer and got a cost of reducing your existing grandstand by (taking it apart) and shipping it off site for re-assembly and bringing it back and reinstalling it after the grade has been dropped. Your existing grandstand is actually an elevated grandstand, so you don’t need to elevate it. -And we’ve confirmed we can build a new press box on the back of it.” He said they have found a way to meet all current code requirements.
He said too all the track and field changes have been sent to Schoolhouse Construction that will estimate all costs in preparation for bidding ahead. “We’re still waiting for those estimates to see if we’re back on track with your maximum cost allowances to keep this project as promised to local voters.”
Jaycee Welsh then asked him to review for the board’s benefits changes the architects have proposed for the replacement of the running track surface.
“Originally we were looking at a full depth removal (of the paved surface) to sub base and to keep to the less than one acre size. What we can do instead is remove the full track and a portion of the sub base.”
He explained that less than six inches of sub base isn’t categorized as a “disturbance.”
“So the plan now is to leave that six inches and compact it. Put some new sub base on top of that and then add a base layer of asphalt and a finished layer including track surface coating with the (school) colors you were looking for in the project.”
He said the track will be at the same level as the old one, although there will be some slight surface variations because the existing track wasn’t built to today’s standards and it’s necessary to elevate by an inch or so some now sunken areas of the existing track.
All current track materials will be replaced, he said, including the pavement on long jump course.
“So it’s not taking out the original sub base. We’re putting another sub base on top of it and then finishing? It’s not just the surface?” the superintendent asked him.
Mr. Smith said the work wasn’t a re-surfacing or re-coating project. “It’s considered a full replacement” of the track, he told her.
He said it’s much less complicated and less costly to just compact the existing sub base and add more material to it.
Board President Jane Whitmore asked if any elevation to the overall surface would create a curb on the periphery of the track “where a kid might roll an ankle.”
“There will be no curb on the edge of the track. Ninety percent of the track surface will be identical to what exists now,” Mr. Smith told her. He explained that there will be a few places where the landscape near the track “will be graded up” to meet the new track surface to make them flush.
“In our original plan, we were going to move our current home bleachers over to the visitors’ side,” Superintendent Welsh told the board members. The move was designed, she said, to accommodate 250 spectators there too, as the home side bleachers were designed to carry.
“When we looked at it, however, we never remembered 250 people sitting on the visitors’ side at a Tupper Lake home game.”
Noting the visitors’ side bleachers are not in good shape, and being careful not to exceed the one acre size, Mrs. Welsh said the district would get new bleachers for that side which are safe but would be smaller and portable.
Mr. Smith said the revised spectator proposal for the track and field would involve a new concrete pad like will be installed on the home team side where the existing bleachers would be re-installed, along with the press box. “On the visitors’ side would be a new Americans With Disabilities Act path to the new location, the old bleachers would be removed and new portable, smaller bleacher put in their place.” The new smaller set of bleachers could be pushed back into themselves for mowing underneath, he told the board and the superintendent.
“Our goal was to do the best we could to keep in line with what the voters who voted for the project wanted, but keep it within budget.” He said with the work his firm has done, as well as the recent work by its design team and the project manager, Schoolhouse Construction, he thinks the project is back on track.
Superintendent Welsh explained that the first things they looked at to lower the cost of or cut were the additions to the track and field complex that had been added after the voter approval.
The representative of CS Arch also told them there are new state developments, which have been embraced by at least one county so far, to permit cooperative bidding tendered by multiple firms of material suppliers which could reduce costs on large municipal building projects, particularly paving and asphalt roof work.
He noted the new ventilating system already installed at the district-owned civic center was accomplished through a cooperative bid between two companies.
The superintendent of schools thought that might be a good topic to discuss with the district’s attorneys that had been scheduled for another matter the next day.
The board that afternoon agreed to the recommendation of CS Arch to award the bid to the Akros firm on the classroom work. The actual bid approval will happen at the board’s monthly meeting on March 10.