A new softball parking lot and more LED lighting are the latest items to be added to the Knox Community School Corporation’s building project. The additional upgrades were approved by the school board earlier this month.
Superintendent Dr. William Reichhart said the new 50-space parking lot will be located off of Veterans Parkway between the bus garage and the woods. “It will allow us to be safer from behind the buildings because a lot of times at night, we have traffic from track,” Reichhart said. “We have kids walking across that driveway. And for people visiting us, it’s really tough to get them to drive, especially now, with Redskin Trail being cut off, the only way would be to go all the way around the block and come in the back way to the high school.”
Reith-Riley Construction submitted the low bid for the work, at just over $112,000.
The school board also agreed to let Circle “R” install LED lighting in portions of the elementary and middle schools that weren’t set to be remodeled. That work will cost almost $296,000, according to Reichhart. “So it’s a substantial cost,” Reichhart acknowledged. “We will get the payback of maintenance not having to change bulbs because there are no bulbs in the new LED lighting. It’s just a solid fixture of light, and so you won’t have any maintenance there and you also will save in the electricity costs.”
Reichhart said he hadn’t gotten a firm figure yet, but he expected to get $30,000 in energy efficiency rebates from NIPSCO.
He noted that Circle “R” and Reith-Riley are both already on-site, which probably helped keep their bids low. The school board has been able to add a number of items to the building project, after bids for the site work and building construction came in under budget and an anonymous donor offered to cover the cost of rebuilding the high school track. Reichhart estimated that there was still another $1.5 million remaining.
