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BELLEFONTE -- Damian Spahr, of SitelogIQ, gave a quick update on the elementary building project during this week's Bellefonte Area School Board meeting.
According to Spahr, a meeting occurred in early February with the building committee and administration where they reviewed information regarding bidding and contract rules.
"We looked at a peek ahead of where we see cost estimates going for the final design. Very importantly, we reviewed the alternates for bidding. There were a few... removed so we're not bidding those as alternates. There were a couple that were slightly modified to provide us better choices when it comes time to determine how we'd like to spend our money on bid day," said Spahr.
The current plan is for KCBA and HRG drawings and specifications to be made available to the board by the end of the week to better determine a potential bid date.
The earliest conditional consideration for going to bid, according to Spahr, would be February 27.
"The reason that it's conditional is if we get through the review of the documents as we're completing them, we will be waiting for the borough to give its final conditional approval prior to us going out to bid," said Spahr.
The Bellefonte Area School District previously authorized a maximum project cost of $56,796,299 and maximum building construction cost of $40,853,396 for the project.
As discussed in prior meetings, as time passes, costs will naturally fluctuate based on needs and the rate of inflation.
"When the borough gives its conditional approval, we will be able to submit a permit set and at that point the timing will work out where we are overlapping with bidding and getting comments back for the permit set. That will allow us to move as quickly as reasonable to get ourselves bids so we can start our work as early as possible in the spring," said Spahr.
Spahr said the borough has "stepped up" their reviews and discussions regarding the land development application, and he believes the borough will be looking to take action on the application in early March.
"It all kind of comes together at that point," said Spahr, "We're hopeful that we'll continue to get a lot of good feedback and action from the borough so that we can move in that direction."
Things seem to be steadily moving forward with the project, according to Spahr.
"We're all very excited to move toward bidding -- there's a lot of interesting contractors (in the) community to bid this new building. We're going to do our best to make sure that the district has a good set of information at the end of this week to be able to review so that that earliest possible date of Feb. 27 for consideration for conditional approval to go to bid..." said Spahr.
The Bellefonte Area School District Board of Directors will meet again on Tuesday, Feb. 27, at Benner Elementary at 7 p.m.