The Marysville School District is taking steps to eliminate a water problem at the Early College High School.
Enviro-Construction of Alexandria submitted the low bid of $88,329 for the work, which will including installing tiling around the permitter of the building on North Maple Street, to handle an issue with water collecting in the low point of an auditorium in the building, known as the “Little Theater.”
According to Marysville Superintendent Diane Mankins the water issue was discovered when crews were preparing to renovate the building ahead of its reopening in 2014.
The structure, built in 1960, had served as a high school and middle school before sitting vacant for five years prior to being reopened as the Marysville Early College High School. The renovations were completed with the help of a $12-million Ohio Department of Education Grant in 2013.
Mankins said the water in the theater was found to have backed up from a stormwater tile running under the nearby open-air courtyard at the school. Mankins said video cameras fed through the lines showed a substantial buildup of debris in the tile, which was subsequently cleared out.
For a year after opening the building the water problem seemed to have been resolved. But emails in October of 2016 among district facility personnel confirm that the issue reemerged in the prior six to 12 months. An email from district director of maintenance Jeff Wargo indicates the facilities department was out of options at that point.
“We received some plans from the City of Marysville, but nothing that was able to shed any light on the drainage issues at the school building,” Wargo’s email reads.
Mankins said additional video camera investigation in the lines revealed that there were no new obstructions, but there was standing water in the tiles. The theater represents the lowest point on the East end of the buildings and engineers from Sands Decker of Columbus, who investigated the issue, believe the issue is being created by heavy groundwater under that portion of the building.
Because of this, the solution offered by the engineers was to run additional tiles around the exterior of the building in a effort to collect groundwater making its way under the building and diverting it away from the building to storm drains in the area.
The district put the project out for bid in August and received three interested responses. Sands Decker estimated the cost of the work at $98,500, the bulk of which came from 1,220 linear feat of 8-inch perforated conduit at an estimated cost of $30,500.
The bids received ranged from $88,329 to $96,023, with Enviro-Construction submitting the low bid. The Marysville Board of Education approved the bid at the October meeting with no timeline for completion offered.
The project will also include work to install drains in the floor of the theater, as a backup plan, should water make its way into the area in the future.