FAYETTEVILLE — Fire up the bulldozers. It’s time to get to work on the expansion of Fayetteville High School.
The Fayetteville School Board approved on Thursday morning a $2.9 million contract amendment allowing demolition and site work to begin for Phase 1 of the $45 million construction and improvement project.
The work will include demolition of the Bates Annex, an elementary school on the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Buchanan Street that was closed and converted to the high school’s use in 2001. It also includes site preparation and excavation on the south side of the campus. The work is needed before building construction can begin.
“We’re poised and ready to go with that,” said Jared Brown, senior project manager for Nabholz Construction, the firm serving as construction manager for the project.
Fencing, to keep students and others out of the construction area, and preparations for demolition will begin next week, officials said.
Demolition is expected to take four weeks, after which site excavation will begin.
Ark Wrecking of Tulsa, Okla., will perform the razing. Nabholz Excavation of Rogers was the low bidder for the site excavation work, according to Alan Wilbourn, public information officer for the school district.
The guaranteed maximum price of the package is $2,980,869, according to Nabholz officials.
There are two contingency allowances, totaling $650,000, for rock excavation, in case crews find a lot of rock under the site, and a possible shoring system, that may be needed to shore up a ground cut that has to be made near an existing building on the site.
“If we hit rock, we have it. If we don’t, we’ll have that money available,” said Phil Jones, a Nabholz account executive.
Most of the material from the demolition of Bates will be recycled or used in other projects, officials said.
“It’s not like we’re tearing the building down and putting it in a landfill,” said Greg Fogel, executive vice president of Nabholz.
The first phase of the high school renovation involves building a new small learning community to accommodate 600 students at the northwest corner of the campus as well as new buildings fronting on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard that include new gymnasiums, cafeteria and performing arts center facilities. The new construction will put the front of the school facing Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard rather than Stone Street, which is where the current entrance is.
Board members said Thursday there are still a couple of alternatives in the project, totaling about $180,000, that have not yet been nailed down because officials are working out how to fund them. Exactly how they will be funded depends on whether taxpayers approve a proposed millage increase.
“It’s a question of how it’s going to be funded, not whether it’s going to happen,” said Tim King, board member.
The district will ask patrons on Sept. 21 to approve a 2.75-mill increase in property taxes to finance Phase 2 of the high school expansion and renovations. Phase 2 largely involves the academic areas, including the existing high school classrooms.
Nabholz officials said they expect to have a final guaranteed maximum price by October.
School officials are planning a groundbreaking ceremony in a couple of weeks. They’re also looking for a couple of time capsules that are supposed to be in Bates, which opened in 1952, Wilbourn said.