Renovations are still in the works at USD 383’s Lincoln Education Center, formerly known as Manhattan High School’s East Campus, as the district looks toward upgrading the Robinson Education Center soon.
Construction owners representative Trisha Brooke-Fruendt on Wednesday told the Manhattan-Ogden school board that new window frames went into the Lincoln Education Center this week. Additionally, workers with McCownGordon Construction installed metal panels on secured entries and applied the first coat of paint to all the walls on the west side of the building.
“If you’ve driven past there, the Davis Bridge continues to be worked on,” Brooke-Fruendt said. “The framing for the windows has been installed. The glass will be installed this week. We’ll start working on that.”
The school board on Wednesday unanimously approved a contract change order with McCownGordon for the Lincoln Education Center project, increasing the guaranteed maximum price by $29,192 to a total of $9,537,038. The change order will cover additional work on the west side of the building, including site demolition, excavation, power washing and the removal of vegetation.
The Lincoln Education Center will house the district’s administrative offices, FIT Closet, school board meeting room and a community space that will host Common Table meals.
That move will leave open the Robinson Education Center across the street from MHS West Campus. There, future renovations are in the design phase. Brooke-Fruendt said the Robinson Education Center renovation will be the last bond project.
Work there will include replacing the building’s exterior siding, putting in two new exterior doors, adding a new secured entry, installing new flooring and making minor demolitions to some walls. The plan also has some potential alternates, such as replacing windows, upgrading the fire alarm and sprinkler system and redoing restrooms and individual air conditioning units in offices.
“There’s a bunch of asbestos abatement we need to do,” Brooke-Fruendt said. “Joints on piping, tile under the carpet, ceiling tiles, stuff like that.”
Brooke-Fruendt said the new exterior will look similar to that of the West Campus building, “to make those colors stand out.”
Brooke-Fruendt said she hopes the Robinson Education Center project will be out to bid in July, but realistically, that may not happen until August.
Superintendent Eric Reid said the goal is to use the Robinson Education Center to extend some of MHS’s alternative programs such as its night school. He also said the district could allow local therapists to use the building to provide services conveniently close to the high school.
“We can get down the hill a lot easier than going up the hill, being able to walk across the street to do what we need to do, so being able to serve those kids in some ways,” Reid said.
Reid said he has been in communication with MHS principal Michael Dorst about what the district plans to do to the building.
The school board unanimously approved a contract change order with McCownGordon for the Lincoln Education Center project, increasing the guaranteed maximum price by $29,192 to a total of $9,537,038.
The change order will cover additional work on the west side of the building, including site demolition, excavation, power washing and the removal of vegetation.
USD 383 approves expenditures
Also on Wednesday, the school board approved multiple expenditures.
It unanimously approved a bid of $26,449 from Engineered Floors for the MHS main office flooring project, which will remove and dispose of existing floor covering and to install a new floor covering in the main office and individual rooms in that area.
The board unanimously authorized the payment of $85,937 to the city of Manhattan for the district’s portion of the joint sewer project. The payment covers the sewer lines added for the drainage of parking lots and practice fields the school added in the past few years. The city and the district split the cost of the project, which required the installation of larger pipes and a 160-foot extension of the city sewer because for extra water drainage.
This is an older construction project at the high school. Sewer lines were added for the drainage of the parking lots and practice fields added to the school’s addition. The city needed larger pipes and an 160 foot extension of the city sewer because of the extra water being drained. The cost was split between the city and the school district.
“This was an old project that somehow got missed during the pandemic that we’re now going to cover our portion of,” board president Jayme Morris-Hardeman said. “But we all see sewer issues all over the city, particularly in the downtown, so any piece of that upstream we can contribute to I think is pretty important.”
The board unanimously approved a change order to McCownGordon Construction totaling $45,348 for insurance reimbursement for the replacement of water-damaged electric components, as well as for framework and drywall that were damaged in a flood caused by a waterline failure. This increases the guaranteed maximum price to $9,582,387.
The funding for this bid comes out of Bond Construction Funds.
