Project increases $7M in two months

What a novel idea: A plan! "We need to think before we start cutting this and cutting that...If you look at it closely, 1,000 square feet is a classroom and that's $250,000. We're not getting back a lot of money by cutting out space and look at what we would be cutting. You got to look at this in the long term."

Allan Schappert, school board president, warned the board not to focus on the project by building to cost. He said keeping the educational needs and requirements in mind also is important.

"How much can we shave off before we're making significant impacts in our ability to deliver education to our children?"


Published July 23, 2008 12:15 am - With rising construction costs and the inclusion of more space, the price tag for Danville's elementary school renovation project has risen $7 million in two months.

Project increases $7M in two months
School board must refine plans

By Jaime North
The Daily Item

DANVILLE -- With rising construction costs and the inclusion of more space, the price tag for Danville's elementary school renovation project has risen $7 million in two months.

The plan to upgrade the Danville, Mahoning-Cooper and Riverside elementary schools will now cost an estimated $47 million after the architect, L. Robert Kimball Associates, recently incorporated the building principals' requests for educational needs and made adjustments for the increasing costs of construction, according to Richard Snodgrass, the district's business administrator.

"We need to get a refinement of what the board wants as a scope of work for these schools," Snodgrass told the school board Tuesday night. "The architect is kind of at a standstill."

In May, the district received an estimate of $40 million to renovate and make additions to the three neighborhood schools, totaling 167,000 square feet. Among the added features were multipurpose rooms, music and art rooms and storage space at each school.

Adding in the principals' list of needs, such as computer labs, the project grew to 176,000 square feet.

It's the extra square feet that needs to be addressed next by the school board, Snodgrass said.

"Obviously, the costs of this project are driven by the square footage," he said. "In order to get the costs down, we need to cut square footage out of the project."

Kellie Krum, a school board member, suggested the board set a limit on the square footage and have the architect work with the elementary principals to determine what needs to be cut or adjusted to reduce the size of the project. Krum was shocked at the size of the overall project, specifically the projected growth at Mahoning-Cooper, which is designed to double in size from 24,000 square feet to more than 60,000 square feet.

"If you could've seen what we were dealing with when we first started talking about this project three years ago to what I see now, it's unbelievable," she said. "The amount of square footage that has grown is incredulous. Somehow, we've been able to limp along with 23,000 square feet at Riverside and 24,000 square feet at Mahoning-Cooper and still been able to educate children."

Simply cutting out space is not the answer, according to Steve Schooley, another board member.

"We need to think before we start cutting this and cutting that," he said. "If you look at it closely, 1,000 square feet is a classroom and that's $250,000. We're not getting back a lot of money by cutting out space and look at what we would be cutting. You got to look at this in the long term."

Allan Schappert, school board president, warned the board not to focus on the project by building to cost. He said keeping the educational needs and requirements in mind also is important.

"How much can we shave off before we're making significant impacts in our ability to deliver education to our children?" Schappert said.

"You've grown significantly in square footage, because you're educating kids in inappropriate spaces," Snodgrass said. "Time is passing, and like I've said, time is money."