Moving Goalposts: Wood County Schools officials going back into playbook for Stadium Field renovation bids
Assistant Superintendent of Operations Kaleb Lawrence and Pickering Associates President and CEO Ryan Taylor talk to the Wood County Board of Education on Jan. 14 about the bids for the Parkersburg High School stadium renovation project. The board later voted on Jan. 28 to not accept any of those bids. (File Photo)
PARKERSBURG — School officials are working diligently to find a viable solution after the initial bids for the Parkersburg High School stadium project were rejected by the Wood County Board of Education during its regular meeting on Jan. 28. Assistant Superintendent of Operations Kaleb Lawrence told the board during the Jan. 14 meeting the district received three bids: SPQ Construction, of Saint Albans, bid $7.2 million, Grae-Con Construction bid $6.29 million and UCCI (United Construction Company Inc.) bid $5.4 million. Lawrence told the board the bond languages stated $2 million would be set aside for the renovations. He said the board has the authority to accept or deny bids, even if they are just a dollar over or under the budget. He said the school district is facing the reality of rising material costs, which have significantly impacted the project’s pricing. “We’ve been very budget conscious,” Lawrence said. “The previous administration kind of put those numbers out there, and then you had COVID, and you had inflation, things are more expensive. With 22 projects going on, we really have to budget conscious.” Despite these challenges, Lawrence said the district is committed to finding a cost-effective solution. He said that means coming up with a new design. “So basically, when that bid got turned down, we now have to go back to the drawing board with our architects,” Lawrence said. “And that means we’re going to have to redesign it.” He said a local contractor who does a lot of work for the school district had submitted a bid and was willing to work with the district about the budget constraints. However, Lawrence said due to the legal requirements around design changes, the district now has to go back and redesign the project. He said there are laws and regulations set by the School Building Authority that the district has to adhere to. He said that included putting the project up for rebid if 10% of the designs are changed. “They’ve done great work for us,” Lawrence said. “They do a lot of work for us, and we appreciate that, and we’d like to keep this work local, but we also have to follow the law, too.” He said since the design will be new, this means the previous bidders would have the opportunity to submit new bids on the revised project. He said the goal is to have a viable solution ready to present to the board and put the project back out for bid within the next month or two, in order to meet the construction schedule and have the field ready for use before the start of the next school year. “The ideal time to do be building it would be the later half the school year and the summer, when there’s not a lot of people there,” Lawrence said. Despite the challenges, he said the school district remains committed to finding a cost-effective solution that maintains the quality and safety of the project. Douglass Huxley can be reached at dhuxley@newsandsentinel.com