Scott Teague
Bids open today for nearly $30 million in contracts to construct the new Putnam County High School.
Bids open at 2 p.m., starting a process that could lead to actual construction as early Nov. 1, said Mike Rowland, Putnam County Schools chief operations officer.
The school district’s construction management firm, GMK Associates, will handle the bidding process, from opening to closing and verification. Once the firm determines the apparent lowest bidders today, they will then investigate the construction companies to make sure the offers are sound and representatives will confer with system administrators to make recommendations to Board of Education members.
Board members could vote to approve the bids as soon as Monday’s regular meeting, Rowland said.
“I don’t know if they’ll get it that quickly, but that would be the earliest time that it could be done,” Rowland said.
There are four contracts up for bid and as many as five companies who’ve previously expressed interest in the project, he said.
“We’ve got four or five bidders, which is good,” Rowland said. “We put off the bid for a week to be sure we had a good number of bidders. Obviously, the more folks we have bidding, the more competition there is and the fairer the prices will be.”
Construction will be divided into building and finishes, electrical, mechanical and plumbing phases.
“The reason why we award the contracts that way is to keep one phase from shutting down the whole project. If you’ve got one contractor that bids the entire project, or if you set it up that its the only way they could bid and then [one phase] was a problem, then that could stop the whole thing,” Rowland said.
The new high school’s location off U.S. Highway 441 is currently being prepared for actual construction. The majority of the grubbing, or removal of trees and debris, is complete, Rowland said.
“The big goal is to prepare the pad site so that when the building and finishes contract is awarded the pad site is ready to go,” Rowland said.
Preparation work for the entire site, including the prep work for the various roads and drives into and out of the school, is underway.
