A building project that would lead to the closure of the historic LaCrosse School took another step forward Thursday.
The Tri-Township School Board officially awarded the Wanatah School expansion project to Performance Services. The five-classroom addition would allow Tri-Township to close LaCrosse High School after the 2021-2022 school year.
Performance Services had conducted the preliminary studies comparing the cost of maintaining the LaCrosse building verses adding onto Wanatah and was the only firm to submit a proposal. Superintendent Kelly Shepherd stressed that Tri-Township was open to other proposals, and that the company simply chose to “maintain a longstanding relationship.” “I view it as a good thing, an aggressive pursuit on their part to stay in the board’s good graces and work hard on behalf of Tri-Township Schools,” he said.
Performance Services’ proposal included a maximum price of almost $2.5 million. The total cost is more than $2.7 million, including fees for the design criteria developer and bond issuance costs. “With the design-build, the price is set,” Shepherd explained, “and once the scope of work is set, it’s set. There’s no change orders. We just have to get the project done and under the ceiling, especially with a non-controlled project.”
Board President Tim Guse downplayed concerns about delays on Performance Services’ previous projects, noting that they were either due to changes requested by the school corporation or issues beyond the firm’s control. “Through that whole time, there was constant communication with them,” Guse said. “They never walked away and said, ‘Well, that’s on your own,’ or they never came back and said, ’Well, you owe extra for this. We didn’t understand it that way.’ They were very, very trustworthy during that whole process.”
Shepherd said that time is of the essence, due to low interest rates, increasing materials costs, the condition of the LaCrosse School’s furnace, and other issues with the building. There’s still no clear plan on what will happen to it once it closes, but Shepherd said it will at least be maintained in the meantime. “We would fix those things one way if the decision was we’re going to stay here long-term,” he said. “Since we’ve made the decision that we’re not doing that, we’ve fixed them to the degree that’s going to get us through for the time remaining because why would be spend a lot of money to fix that?”
The final terms and conditions of the contract with Performance Services still need to be negotiated.
