MARYSVILLE School officials are bracing themselves for an increase in building costs as they plan a new high school and elementary school for the Marysville School District.
Projects in other districts are seeing a 20 percent increase as a booming construction market and competition among contractors send costs sky high. A new elementary school was pitched to voters at a cost of $12.4 million but estimates now are $2.5 million higher.
In the last six months weve had tremendous inflation, architect Bill Chaput of the Kirkland firm of Hutteball and Oremus told the Marysville School Board at their Oct. 16 meeting.
Other districts are having similar problems and 10 percent of the increase is due to materials and another 10 percent is due to marketplace dynamics, he said. The initial $12.9 million estimate for the Grove Street elementary facility was based on a cost of $216 per square foot for a 59,764-square-foot building. That was trimmed back by 5,000-square-feet to get the February ballot proposal under $12.4 million. The market has since pushed costs to $275 per square foot, the same figure other districts are paying.
The Highline School District is paying the same average amount for a vandal resistant, air-conditioned building of 65,500-square-feet and the Everett School District is paying $360 per square foot for a $22.6 million elementary school of 62,700-square-feet.
Things are happening in our market now that are driving costs, Chaput said.
What can we do to bring that figure back down? asked school board president Michael Kundu.
Steel seems to be the culprit in a lot of these things, said district capital projects director John Bingham. He has sat down with engineers to see where steel use can be eliminated or reduced from projects.
At the new elementary school costs are being reduced by leaving much of the site as it is and grading and excavating only around the building footprint. A parking lot to the rear of the plot of land is being retained to save time and money and plans call for the playfield area at the former driving range site to be left as is, with no sprinkler systems installed. Reusing the playfields will save $150,000 and keeping the parking lot saves another $32,000. Retaining landscaping will save another $6,500.
An $18 million campus for district optional programs is being built on the Tulalip Indian Reservation and Bingham has instructed his planners to use the soil on that site for other facilities.
Were sitting on a huge pile of sand there, lets use it, Bingham told the board.
The district is catching a break from the state, which recently changed the formula used to calculate payments for districts lacking enough space for students. The state match can approach 15 percent of a projects cost and the state increased the dollar amount allotted per square foot of new building space being built as well as the amount of footage allowed per student. For example as the elementary schools cost have neared $15 million, the district has come out ahead by about $200,000.
The school will cost $10.8 million for the stick-built portion, $1.7 million for a modular component designed to match the rest of the building, and $2.3 million for site work. By including a modular portion of the building from day one, the district will be first in line for the next round of state matching funds, as those modular wings will be classified as portables according to state regulations.
The same factor should help with the $79 million high school, a more complicated project that will take twice as long to complete. The savings wont be enough to pay for an additional elementary school as hoped, said district superintendent Larry Nyland.
Bingham said he is also shaking the tree to find any other savings; a large component is bringing the contractor for the high school on board while drawings are being made. The district got state approval to participate in a program that has saved other districts hundreds of thousands of dollars; now Bingham is talking to general contractors about their business practices. For example the Granite Falls School District required subcontractors to be bonded and Bingham is asking if that is really necessary. He told the board he has talked to contractors when few or no bids were made on various projects. What can we do to make it easier for you? is the message he is taking to these firms, Bingham told the board.