By Kevin Boneske
Staff Writer
ASHWAUBENON – The school board awarded contracts to proceed with some planned facility improvement projects as part of the $10.05 million capital referendum approved by voters last month.
At its regular monthly meeting Wednesday, May 13, and a special meeting Friday, May 15, the board approved a series of contracts as recommended by Building and Grounds Coordinator Tom Schmitt.
The board approved a proposal from Stalker Sports Floors of $338,190 to replace gym floors in the auxiliary high school gymnasium and at Parkview Middle School and Pioneer Elementary School.
Schmitt said work on replacing the floors will be able to start immediately and be completed by Aug. 1.
“I worked with (Stalker Sports Floors) to see if they could open up parts of their schedule and their staff to provide an opportunity to get that flooring in the gymnasiums done this summer, because typically a gymnasium (floor replacement) takes about six to seven weeks to complete from demolition to finish,” he said.
Business Director Keith Lucius said Schmitt contacted other districts installing gym floors to get comparable prices on bid contracts.
“The prices (Ashwaubenon received from Stalker) are competitive,” Lucius said. “They’re actually better than recently bid-out projects when you go by (the) square foot and you look at similar gyms.”
When asked by board Treasurer Michelle Garrigan about replacing the gym floor at Pioneer, where the flooring is detaching from the concrete, and the gym foundation and masonry walls are in need of repair, Schmitt said the all the flooring will be demolished to see what the subfloor looks like.
“Once they get the floor opened up, then we’ll take a look at it,” he said. “And if there’s additional needs, typically they’ll take care of those, and it’ll be based on what is needed. But until you get that floor opened up, we really don’t know. We’re anticipating they’re won’t be any issues, but we just don’t know.”
Schmitt said $450,000 previously estimated for the referendum to replace all three gym floors would provide around a $110,000 contingency should additional work be required for the floor at Pioneer.
He said the foundation and wall repair for the Pioneer gym will have to be done before the new floor is installed.
The board approved the low bid of $84,000 from Quality Building Restoration to repair the foundation and masonry walls.
The referendum estimated $150,000 to repair and restore the Pioneer gymnasium.
Schmitt said additional expenditures will be necessary to complete the restoration, including painting the ceiling and walls, which were not in the scope of the referendum.
Windows and doors
The board approved a bid of $102,889 from Packerland Glass to replace all windows on the second floor and all aluminum doors at Parkview to improve energy efficiency and safety.
“Right now all the aluminum entrance doors are a single-pane glass,” Schmitt said. “We are going to be replacing them with a one-inch, (low-emissivity) thermopane glass, which will be wrapped with the shatter-resistant window film, so that all of the entrance doors at Parkview will be covered with a shatter-resistant window film and more energy-efficient…”
To remove the existing windows and doors and dispose of contaminated material, such as asbestos calking, the board accepted a bid of $23,887 from Asbestos Removal Inc.
Schmidt said the door and window replacement at Parkview could be completed by July 1.
The referendum amount included an estimate of $200,000 for that work.
LED lights
With the referendum also including the installation of LED fixtures in the district’s gymnasiums, high school locker rooms, high school multipurpose area, high school fieldhouse lobby, Parkview Library Media Center and classrooms on the second floor at Pioneer, the board approved the purchase of MaxLite brand fixtures from the Batteries Plus Bulbs store in Ashwaubenon for $51,785.
Schmitt said MaxLite fixtures “have the highest warranty in the business at 10 years.”
He said the estimated annual electrical savings with the fixtures is around $15,000, while Ashwaubenon’s expected Focus on Energy rebate would be approximately $16,200.
Schmitt said the district will have to hire an electrician to install the fixtures, for which he will be getting proposals.
The referendum estimated a cost of $120,000 to purchase and install them.
Other referendum projects
The board still has to award other projects contracts planned with the capital referendum, such as adding air conditioning throughout the high school, Pioneer and Valley View for an estimated $4.35 million, as well as upgrading school safety at Cormier and Pioneer for an estimated $3.9 million.
Another referendum project, repairing the high school track, is estimated at $680,000.