The Marysville High School stadium project has several construction companies working on it for a combined price of just more than $8.7 million.
At a special meeting Wednesday morning, Marysville School District officials chose Altman Co. for the overall stadium work for $5.60 million. The district also plans to contract with Musco Lighting, for $496,785, to work on lights; Dant Clayton Corporation, for $1.68 million, to work on the bleachers and press box; and the AstroTurf company, for $956,938, to work on the turf.
District treasurer Todd Johnson said the other contractors were selected to take care of items that were removed from the overall stadium project plans so they could be direct purchased. He said the project’s architect had “highly recommended” using the other companies for the direct purchase work.
“I think the direct purchase was a good decision because it gave us the ability to work with the vendor,” Johnson said. “It gave us the opportunity to choose the company we wanted to work with rather than being stuck with a company just based on a bid.”
At district meetings in the recent past, the district has announced it would have to remove lights, bleachers, the press box and turf from the initial bid because they were driving up costs outside of the district’s bidding restrictions.
Altman Co. originally submitted a bid $8.86 million before the November meeting, and that came in too high for the district’s budget of $7.14 million for the overall project. The contractor’s current bid now has those items removed.
Altman Co. came back with a $5.47 million bid before the January meeting. Johnson said that lower bid then took “alternates” into account. Superintendent Diane Mankins explained alternates are items the district wants to have but may or may not afford them, and the district can “choose to take them or not take them” to change the base bid.
“We ended up accepting the base bid plus the alternates,” Johnson said.
Mankins said alternates the board accepted in Altman Co.’s bid include an irrigation system, sod, additional track lighting and a change in planters.
“Those would be things we accepted that would take the base bid higher,” Mankins said.
Mankins said the construction deadline will still be Aug. 15 for the football stadium side, in time for the first football game of the season. She said the track stadium portion will be completed around Nov. 1.
She said these deadlines have not changed at all since the project was announced.
“Our hiccup in everything was really the goal of having the middle school (stadium) ready this spring,” Mankins said. “Obviously, the middle school project is not going to be done by this spring with the amount of rain we had this fall. It put the project behind.”
Johnson said the contracts with each company are expected to be signed within the next couple of weeks. Mankins said “shovels will be in the dirt” shortly after that contract signing is held.
“We’re excited to get things underway and get things moving,” Mankins said.