School board approves million dollar bid for North Grand renovations

By James Grob, jgrob@charlescitypress.com

The talk is almost over, the work is about to begin.

The Charles City School District Board of Directors voted unanimously on Monday to give director of operations Jerry Mitchell permission to accept a bid from Woodruff Construction totaling $1,059,900 for North Grand Building renovations.

The work will begin as soon as the contracts are signed, and is required to be completed within 180 days.

The school district came to an agreement last year with TLC: The Learning Center child care to lease portions of the 1970s part of the building as TLC expands its capacity and services. TLC has begun renovating its part of the building.

Developer Shawn Foutch purchased the 1930s part of the building and is turning it into market-rate apartments. The school district has now vacated that part of the building for Foutch to work.

As part of the agreement with TLC, the child care is responsible for its own renovations inside the building, while the school district is responsible for the renovation of the enveloping structure. This includes heating, ventilation and air conditioning, utilities, roof repair, asbestos removal, a dividing fire wall, as well as a condominium wall dividing the parts of the building used by Foutch, TLC and the district.

Work will include adding another set of utilities, including additional gas and electric lines.

“Originally we thought that we would piecemeal the bids, but instead we decided to hire an architect and engineer,” said Charles City Superintendent of Schools Mike Fisher. “We are using the same ones as TLC, because that made the most sense.”

Fisher said that the biggest challenge has been the rising costs of parts and labor over the past few years. The cost of the renovations is more than $250,000 higher than what the district estimated it would be a year ago.

“Originally, we were estimating the bids would come in at three-quarters of a million dollars,” Fisher told the board. “As you can see, we are in the million dollar range instead, and most of that has to do with the availability of resources and parts.”

Fisher said he is certain that if the district were to reject Woodruff’s bid and re-bid the project, the new bids would be higher still.

Last year, the school board budgeted $150,000 per year over five years for the renovations. The board will have a special meeting to approve the bank bids for the project on Feb. 1, starting at 6:15 p.m.

In other business on Monday, the board gave Director of Technology April Hanson permission to accept a bid from cloud services provider Zoom and Cloud Warriors to update phone equipment and services.

The bid comes to a total of $26,731.80 for phone services and licensing as well as a one-time equipment and installation charge of $47,920. Hanson told the board she had received five bids for a new service provider to replace the current phone system. A committee narrowed that down to two, and both bidders demonstrated their products and services before the committee.

Zoom received the best scores from committee members and was chosen to be the new phone services provider, with their bundled phone reseller Cloud Warriors, for new Polycom phones and installation.

In other business on Monday, the board:
• Heard a presentation from Steve Schulz regarding the vision and construction plans of the new NIACC Academy.
• Heard presentations regarding Leader In Me progress and the home school assistance program.
• Set the date and time for a public hearing on proposed 2022-23 calendar revisions for Monday, Feb. 14 at 6:15 p.m. in the high school library.
• Approved the appointment of Jacqueline Groesbeck, induction mentor, effective Jan. 24.
• Approved the appointment of Megan Nyberg, ELL teacher, effective Aug. 11, 2022.
• Approved the appointment of Patrick Nyberg, Talented and Gifted teacher, effective Aug. 11, 2022.
• Approved the appointment off Jamie Sindlinger, volunteer basketball coach, effective, Jan. 24.