Concepts, cost of possible facilities upgrades presented to school board

Moving toward a possible bond issue to fund facilities upgrades, the Unified School District 333 board of education met with Mike Mayo, principal architect with Ebert Mayo Design Group Architects & Planning Consultants, Manhattan, during a study session on Wednesday night.
Mayo has been working with the school district since last year to provide facilities planning services. He presented the board of education with potential upgrades and additions for the Concordia Junior-Senior High School, Concordia Elementary School and USD 333 Service Center, the old Middle School.
The estimated cost for all of the projects in the priority one list of Mayo's plan is $41.9 million.
“We want to focus on the present needs, which we feel are a concern, which are the ADA (American's with Disabilities Act) compliance, the electrical and the plumbing, those things are the guts. But I don't think it is very efficient of taxpayer dollars to only look at just fixing the present. As we do this stuff it is important that we look at the future. We are not building education for 2018. If we are going to do a major project I think we need to build our facility to get us by for the next 25 to 30 to 50 years. I think we are selling ourselves short if we just fix a couple of outlets here and there. That is not doing ourselves any favors in the long run,” superintendent of schools Quentin Breese said.
The board spent nearly the entire meeting discussing the plans for the Junior-Senior High School. It will meet again next Wednesday at 6 p.m to review the plans for the Middle School and Elementary School.
Cost of the improvement concepts at the Junior-Senior High School, presented by Mayo, is $29.6 million. That includes the construction of a new auxiliary gymnasium (approximately ($3.3 million), remodeling of the existing junior varsity gymnasium into a science suite with science lab classrooms (approximately $2.6 million), utilizing the current swimming pool area as locker rooms and a new wrestling practice facility (approximately $3.4 million), the construction of a three-level special education suit (estimated $648,000) and mechanical/electrical/plumbing/telecommunications upgrades, which includes a fire sprinkler system (approximately ($3.1 million).
Other items includes on the plan for the Junior-Senior High School included moving the administrative offices from the north side to the south side of the building, exterior improvements, security/safety  improvements, community and stakeholder spaces improvements (auditorium), facility support and maintenance spaces, building exterior improvements and mechanical.
Cost estimates for the proposed improvements at the Elementary School, which includes adding on to the building for six early childhood education classrooms ($1.56 million) is $4.1 million.
The total estimated cost of improvements at the former Middle School building, which would house students in grades 4-6, includes construction of a classroom/hardened shelter addition ($990,000) and the replacement of the heating, cooling, air conditioning, ventilation system ($1.4 million), is $8.2 million.
Construction of a new 10,000 square foot auxiliary gymnasium, with bleachers that would seat 300 people, on the north side of the Junior-Senior High School, would require the school district to purchase property to the north at an estimated cost of $549,410 based on the 2018 county appraisals of the existing properties. That includes all of the properties from Cedar Street to Republican Street.
The board, in May of this year, approved the purchase of a home located at 920 Cedar Street.
Board president Mark Nordell asked if the district would need the entire block for the gymnasium.
Mayo said that the district would need about half a block to accommodate a gymnasium.
Board member Kevin Pounds suggested that the board look at specific items for the Junior-Senior High School including the site exterior, the student learning spaces (science labs), physical education space (new gym, wrestling room, locker room), and then stop there.
Estimated cost for those projects would be about $10 million.
“Those are the things we talked about, and really said this is the stuff we need. So lets look at this. If you don't like it, change it, if you do like it, whatever. But $39 million when we started the last time. We can't afford that. We need to get something that is affordable. None of us really want to raise the taxes. So we need to decide what it is we want and go do that,” Pounds said.
Adding the mechanical/electrical/plumbing/telecommunications upgrades to the projects that Pounds proposed was discussed.
Board member Tony Miller suggested presenting a bond issue that includes all of the concepts included in Mayo's plan.
“I am just throwing it out there. If the public wants it, if the public votes in then it comes in,” Miller said.
Nordell said that by doing that the district would lose, if voted down, the upgrades to the science classrooms.
“I know what our needs are, I don't doubt them, but I don't want us to take all of this time and look for something from this community that is completely out of the realm. If we took this to them now, 'here it is', I think we have wasted Mike's time and all of our time. We need to come up with something we think has a better than average chance of passing,” board member John Culley said.
The decision was then made to schedule a meeting for next week to discuss the Middle School and Elementary School proposals.