Bid openings are next week
The Highland Falls-Fort Montgomery Central School District is scheduled to open bids on its multi-faceted $23.4 million O’Neill High School capital project on January 22.
That’s after about 20 representatives of firms bidding on the jobs took a ‘walk-through’ of the project last week, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Frank Sheboy said.
Once opened, the bids are to be turned over to the project manager hired by the Board of Education, Joe Tola from SAVIN Engineers, and evaluated by the project architects and engineers. While the Board of Education in not sure how long that process will take — it’s where they check insurance, that bid specifications are met, etc. — the district hopes to award bids by its February 7 Board of Education meeting.
“After that, the next thing that will happen is ground breaking,” Sheboy said at least week’s BOE meeting. He said there would be some kind of public ground-breaking ceremony as the project kicks off.
The project includes both indoor (science classroom and boys’ and girls’ locker room renovations, some upgrades in restrooms, and other interior safety work) as well as major outdoor work that will include installing two new artificial turf fields, new bleachers, increased tennis courts, a new track and more.
Work — to be done in stages so as to not disrupt the education of high schoolers — is expected to be completed in the fall of 2020.
At each monthly business meeting of the BOE, President Anne Lawless said, Tola will be on hand to give the board updates on the project. That will begin once the bids are awarded, she said.
Board members asked at last week’s meeting if they had access to
construction sites and meetings pertaining to the project. Lawless said that while nothing will be kept from board members, they should not individually roam around the site or break the protocol of handling project concerns.
“This is a very exciting time,” Board Member Gus Koutsourades said.
