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Board accepts Wilburn bid of $9 million for Nicholasville Elementary School renovation

May 23, 2012|By Jonathan Kleppinger | jkleppinger@jessaminejournal.com

The price tag for next year’s comprehensive renovation of Nicholasville Elementary School is lower than district officials feared but higher than originally projected.

The Jessamine County Board of Education accepted the low bid of $9,061,000 from D.W. Wilburn at its meeting Monday night. The schematic design for the project, approved in December, estimated the cost at $8.5 million; when the design and development documents were approved in January, architect Margie Jacobs of Tate Hill Jacobs told the board the cost could be around $9.7 million.

Jacobs told board members Monday that the construction market was reverting to its pre-recession state and that contractors would have complicated timelines for the Nicholasville Elementary project since it would be done in phases while some students remain in the building.

“This is a reflection of construction costs adjusting themselves back to what we were seeing about five years ago,” Jacobs said. “I really don’t think there’s anything unique to this project other than that kids are going to be there; it’s going to be occupied, so we’re seeing that premium.”

The board accepted Wilburn’s base bid of $8.88 million with four alternate bids totaling $181,000. The other two base bids were $9,666,000 from Griggs Enterprises and $10.8 million from Enola Contracting.

Early start time for primary

The board approved start and end times of 7:30 a.m. and 2:20 p.m. for the primary grades of Nicholasville Elementary at Monday’s meeting in an effort to avoid traffic congestion on Ky. 29.

Students in grades one through three will attend school in an unrenovated portion of Jessamine Early Learning Village next year while the work is completed. Students in grades four and five will remain on-site at Nicholasville Elementary but be kept away from the renovation as it is phased.

Traffic from JELV, Warner Elementary, Jessamine Career and Technology Center and the Royse central-office building all enters and exits along a 1,000-foot stretch of Ky. 29 (Wilmore Road) just inside the junction with U.S. 27. The early start time for Nicholasville’s primary center will allow its traffic to dissipate before JELV’s start at 7:45 and Warner’s start at 8.

“It doesn’t make for crazy bus pickup times for ones being transported by bus,” superintendent Lu Young told the school board Monday night. “The earliest you would have to be on the bus is 6:40 a.m., and that’s normal for us.”

But board member Hallie Bandy was concerned about fourth- and fifth-grade bus-riders getting to Nicholasville Elementary early and having to wait for the start of school at 8 a.m., as well as primary bus-riders getting out of school at 2:20 p.m. and waiting to pick up older students at 2:50. Board member JoAnn Rohrback said the plan could be a “child-care nightmare” for parents.

Young said she and her staff would consider changing the start time for all of Nicholasville Elementary to 7:30 a.m.; those times will be set at the June school-board meeting. Chief operating officer Paul Hamann said that would be his recommendation if the travel times between the two sites allowed it.

“I’m afraid the solution is going to be painful, no matter which one we have,” Hamann said. “But we can minimize that as best as possible.”

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