FAYETTEVILLE — School Board ratifies bond refunding
Some Fayetteville High School students are just weeks away from having an indoor practice facility and ancillary spaces ready to use.
The artificial turf in the new facility, adjacent to Harmon Stadium on the high school campus, is being laid this week and should be completed Monday, the School Board learned Thursday from Phil Jones, project executive for Nabholz Construction. Nabholz is the construction manager for the school’s renovation project.
The practice facility is as wide as a football field, 53 yards, and about 55 yards long. There is still outside landscaping and paving to be completed before the building is finished, Jones said.
Next door to the facility is the Fahring Building, which was renovated earlier this year and completed in August.
Together the complex is called the Bulldog Activity and Recreation Complex, or BARC. Construction documents show the guaranteed maximum price for the complex was $4.4 million.
A new competition track, south of Ramay Junior High School, is days from completion, Jones said. There is some cleanup of the site still to do as well as the finishing touches on an entrance gate on Old Farmington Road.
The board will tour the facilities in early January.
Construction continues on the new classroom building on the site of the former gymnasium. The 51,000-square-foot building will be home to the agricultural program, the alternative learning program and other classrooms when it is completed.
Jones said the building is on track for an August completion with a contingency plan for a portion of the building to open in January 2014.
Foundation walls have been completed, exterior framing is under way and some of the mechanical systems are being installed. Roof decking is also under way.
“I feel pretty good with the progress in the last 30 days,” Jones said. Asked by board member Bryn Bagwell about closing the building in before the historically bad weather months of January and February, he said, “I would like it better if there were more walls.”
Work is weather dependent until the building is closed in.
The 50-classroom building will be at street level on the north side on Bulldog Boulevard, but will be three levels on the south side where it will open onto a pedestrian walkway running through the new campus.
When the building is finished, work will move into the building on the northeast corner of the campus, which will undergo extensive remodeling to complete the $93 million transformation of the high school.
In other business, the board ratified a $6.1 million bond refunding, which will save the district about $1.2 million in interest. New bonds were issued at a 1.6 percent interest rate, described by Lisa Morstad, chief financial officer for the district, as possibly the lowest rate the district has received.
“This is a very significant amount in savings,” she said.
The bonds were originally issued in 2007 for renovation of Butterfield Trail Elementary School.
At A Glance
New Position
Holly Brain Johnson was hired Thursday by the Fayetteville School Board as the district’s first director of development, grants and marketing. The position was created to pursue opportunities to enhance the revenue stream through grants, to shore up marketing efforts and develop opportunities for local grants to tap into, said Superintendent Vicki Thomas. The position will pay $91,612, Thomas said. Johnson is currently the executive director of the Fayetteville Public Education Foundation.
Source: Staff Report