Proposed high school survives county budget trim

Commissioners, board of education reach price target of $78 million

Friday, June 19, 2009

After conducting a value engineering project, the Charles County commissioners recently agreed to fund the county portion of the new high school slated to open 2013 provided the school system can design it with a $78 million price tag.

According to Charles Wineland, the schools' assistant superintendent for supporting services, this is a $19 million reduction from the original cost.

"We want to dust off the high school project and bring you up to speed. ... We have a lot of loose ends to pull together," Wineland said last week at the Charles County Board of Education meeting.

Derk Jeffrey, managing principal of the SHW Group LLC educational building architects, said he wanted to create some clarity by presenting the board with the latest developments on the new school.

"The bottom line is there is more work to do to reduce the cost of the project in order to bring in a project that is $19 million less than it was a year ago," he said.

Jeffrey said that the philosophy and the key design components originally in the school's plan are all intact— including the digital classroom. The digital classroom includes stadium seating and a dome that will surround students with images four times the resolution of a home high-definition television.

Jeffrey said the original concept was budgeted to cost $97 million, of which $83 was for construction costs.

Jeffrey said last spring that the project would have been completed at $80 million had everything been approved and gone to bid.

"Your goal seemed attainable within budget a year ago," he said.

Jeffrey said the challenge now is to keep everything as it is and bring the entire construction cost down to $63 million.

"It's tough to do, but that's the task," he said.

One thing that is helping, Jeffrey said, is the economy. What once was going to cost $80 million in construction costs looks to now cost slightly more than $70 million.

Jeffrey presented two estimates for construction costs based on the market today which were done by third-party contractors.

"These are experts in the field; they value engineer buildings. ... Schools, schools," Wineland said.

Jeffrey said even with shaving costs off of construction and classroom designs, he believes the $5 million pool might not be a reality. He said the pool would be a bid alternate — an item that might or might not be included based on the prices that come in during bidding.

Jeffrey said one option to bring the construction cost down would be to stack the four academic houses of the school on top of one another.

He estimated a $700,000 to $800,000 cost savings as it would require less roof and save on energy costs, among other savings.

Ronald G. Cunningham, deputy superintendent for the county's public schools, said when he was a principal at a four-story high school in Prince George's County he felt he was actually closer to students if there were ever problems. He said students didn't seem to mind the four-story school.

School board member Pamela A. Pedersen voiced her concern that the school would need to accommodate students with disabilities by way of an elevator or some other way for these students and staff to get to and from the different floors.

Jeffrey said his team would still be looking over the designs and making some changes.

Roberta S. Wise, vice chairwoman of the school board, asked if the American Community Properties Trust would follow through with proposals it made when the county did its value engineering. ACPT, which owns the land where the school would be built, proposed that the school system would not need to build an additional stormwater pond. According to Katie O'Malley Simpson, spokeswoman for the school system, the original budget for the school included funds to build an additional pond.

Wineland said last week he was waiting for something in writing as to what ACPT agreed to. He said if ACPT withdrew the offers, "It's going to create quite a problem for us" since officials have already reduced the school's price tag.

"I think the county should eat that seeing as they shoved this value engineering down our throats," said board member Charles E. Carrington.

As far as moving forward with the project, Wineland said the school system cannot get state approval until October. Final approvals won't come until the 2010 legislative session is completed in April.

"We don't have the luxury of going to the state on any given day and asking for approval on a project," Wineland said.

"Best-case scenario, we get ready for the day when they say it's approved but the money won't be there for a couple months," he said.

Wineland said the commissioners have been very helpful in the past in getting the first payment to get the biddings started which contributed to the past four projects coming in under budget.

Wise asked Wineland if he felt confident in the state's decision when he presents the project in October.

Wineland said the only thing that feels better is that the two elected bodies, the commissioners and the board of education, are in agreement on the project.

Superintendent James E. Richmond said the next thing for the two boards to do is to come together and agree on the operating costs of the school.

gphillips@somdnews.com