By Megan Kelley

Review Writer

The Lake Orion Community Schools Board of Education met last week for their bi-annual workshop meeting where the board approved more than $9 million in bid awards for part one of the new Blanche Sims Elementary bond project.

Projects included in part one are earthwork and site utilities, fencing, foundations, masonry and structural steel.

“A lot of it is driven by the pricing and the supply aspects of the world we currently live in. So, I refer to this as Blanche Sims facility part one awards. There will be part two and probably part three,” said Assistant Superintendent of Business and Finance John Fitzgerald. “The part one piece here secures things that we know the pricing is going nuts on like steel, the foundational stuff, the stuff that we need to have in place and secure.”

LOCS received a total of 16 bids for the five contracts. The total contract awarded and approved unanimously by the LOCS Board of Education was $9,791,916 (contracts presented in the amount of $8,871,097 with $920,819 in allocated contingency and allowances).

The bids received and approved were above budgetary estimates when the three series, $160 million bond was originally approved by voters in 2018, said Fitzgerald.

“These are above the bonds created; everything, across the board, on this particular part,” Fitzgerald said. “The bond applications, the monies identified, those are estimates supply due to certain projects as you go and those were, 2017, 2018 when they went through. They’ve held up pretty good up until this last year or so. So, we now are on budgetary pressures.”

The project will be funded by both Series 1 bond and sinking fund resources.

The district’s Blanche Sims Elementary project is the largest piece of the district’s bond and is expected to cost around $25.6 million, the original bond document shows.

Construction is scheduled to begin in the spring of 2022 and finish in the fall of 2023.

The old building is expected to be torn down after the completion of the new building, according to construction plans.