The district is also facing limits on concrete purchases as well as delays in deliveries of items such as furniture, acoustic tiles and school lockers. The higher costs and materials shortages are part of a trend nationwide in the construction industry, according to discussions.
Randy Fite, the district’s director of construction, provided an update to the LISD board of trustees on a variety of capital projects, all of which are funded through bonds approved by voters in 2017. And while not all of the work will be completed before the first day of school on Aug. 11 as originally planned, officials have found temporary solutions, he said.
“We will be ready for the first day of school,” he told trustees.
Fite also reviewed bids on the guaranteed maximum price received for upcoming projects that the board will consider for approval at its Aug. 9 meeting.
Distribution center renovations are proposed at $239,913 while added parking for the Eastside Aquatic Center is proposed at $733,899. Both projects came within budget, Fite said.
But bids considered the best value for the guaranteed maximum price on three other projects came in about $7.45 million over budget, he said. Those projects, according to district documents, are:
- the Durham and Creek Valley middle school fine arts additions and renovations, which totaled nearly $6.66 million ($2.75 million over budget);
- the Lewisville High School fine arts addition and renovation, which was about $3.79 million ($1.8 million over budget); and
- the Hebron High School black box theater project and storm shelter, which came in at nearly $9.86 million ($2.9 million over budget).
Fite said the district identified six other completed projects funded through the 2017 bond measure that came in below the guaranteed maximum prices, freeing up about $7.49 million in bond money to fund these latest projects.
“We’ve got a way to cover these,” Superintendent Kevin Rogers told the board.
A project that will likely be put on hold, though, is the one at The Colony High School, which includes a football press box replacement and fiber installation. Fite said that bid for a guaranteed maximum price came in at nearly $5.13 million. That is about 89% over the original budget, he said.
“This doesn’t really make sense,” Rogers told the board.
The district is considering putting this work on hold and packaging it with the future construction of a multipurpose facility at the high school. The goal is that the combined work and delay in construction will result in lower costs in the future.
“Although there are no guarantees as to what the market will be like next year, by waiting to perform this work, we believe at least some of the construction material and commodity prices should level off and begin to come back down,” according to the presentation to the board.
The funding will be considered at the district’s Aug. 9 board meeting, which starts at 7 p.m.
