The Eastern Pulaski School Board has decided to go ahead with seeking bids for a large-scale paving project. On Monday, board members approved the specifications and scope for the concrete and asphalt project and issued the necessary bid documents. The work would include resurfacing the driveways and most of the parking lots on the schools’ campus. Plans also call for sidewalk repair and traffic flow updates.
Superintendent Dan Foster said Gibraltar Design was able to add some of the suggestions made by board members last week into the project specifications. “He did get the drive portion out there that Mr. Tetzloff was talking about last week as part of the base bid, and then the sidewalk out at the baseball area was part of the Alternate 1,” Foster explained. “Those are the two areas that we really want to focus on. I mean, I think we bid it all and hope for the best, but if we could get those two areas specifically, I think all that information will be in the original specs that go out.”
The school board also formally decided to keep working with Gibraltar Design. That was done through an amendment to an existing contract between the two groups. “Gibraltar has to be under contract before they can send stuff out to bid for a company,” Foster said. “So they have taken our original contract from a couple years ago when we did the major project. They’ve adjusted for the amount that we paid toward the site work last spring, when we were bidding the project the first time. Plus, they have done quite a bit this December, January, into this new stuff.”
Eastern Pulaski will pay Gibraltar over $42,000 for its services, once previous credits are taken into account. Foster said the company has been more cooperative lately. “I think some of our frustration with some of the things that have happened recently with the big project, they’re starting to work through some of that. They’re communicating a little bit better with us. And they did kind of lower their fee a little bit on this one, to kind of acknowledge that they understand we’ve had a little frustration. So obviously, it would have cost us a whole lot of money to go to a different company and start from zero with all the site work.”
Now, Gibraltar is planning a pre-bid meeting with potential contractors later this month. Bids will be awarded in February, with construction expected to start in March. Depending on the bids, the work is estimated to cost over $2 million.
