Sports

Iowa City School Board OKs Bid for City High Fine Arts Wing Renovation

The School Board approved the $5.61 million fine arts renovation bid for Iowa City City High School. A planned office renovation at Mark Twain Elementary School, however, could be delayed due to higher than expected bids.

 

A project that first came to light when Lane Plugge was still Superintendent of the Iowa City School District cleared what could be its final hurdle Tuesday night.

The Iowa City School Board voted 4-2, with board member Tuyet Dorau absent, to approve the $5.6 million bond for the Iowa City fine arts wing renovation project. Board members Karla Cook and Sarah Swisher were the no votes. The motion also called for the decision on an office renovation project at Mark Twain Elementary School to be delayed until next meeting.

Find out what's happening in Iowa Citywith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The project will focus on improving the area around City High's Opstad Auditorium on the north side of the school, adding large rehearsal spaces for band, choir, and orchestra classes, new art rooms, more storage space, and other additions. It will also work to renovate the space affected by the new project, integrating the renovated fine arts wing into the existing City High building.

The Twain Elementary School project, bid out for $428,600, is intended to remodel the office area of the elementary school, making a better use of office space and also resituating the door so visitors to the school are forced to have contact with office personnel before entering.  

Find out what's happening in Iowa Citywith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Even though the project had been scaled down several times from its original scope, the lowest construction bid still came in around $410,000 higher than was originally estimated. The aforementioned Twain office project bid came in at $68,000 over budget.

David Dude, the district's director of operations, told the board that due to these higher bids, to pay for the City High fine arts project the district could: reduce the scope of the project, try to rebid the project and get a lower bid (likely for a project with a reduced scope), do both projects at their current bid prices and push other construction projects to a later date to compensate, or do the City High project at its current bid while delaying the Twain project a year, allowing the district to keep everything else on schedule. 

It quickly became clear that the school board had no desire to downsize the fine arts project even more, after it had already gone through several reductions.

"I would be hesitant to reduce that project by anything, because we've always reduced that project by so much," said board member Sally Hoelscher.

Tim Fehr, the architect from Shive Hattery who was project manager for the fine arts addition, agreed with this sentiment.

"We really do think that we've got it down to the bare minimum at this point," Fehr said.

With this decided, and with a consensus that the board didn't want to drop the fines arts project off the list, either, it became clear that something would have to be delayed to make up for the extra $410,000 in construction costs this year. There was also pressure on the council to make the decision for the fine arts project Tuesday evening due to synching up with construction schedules outlined by Fehr.

Board member Patti Fields said that without looking at the Comprehensive Facilities Plan (CFP) that lays out the district's projects for the year, it would be hard to decide whether to delay those projects or delay the Twain office renovation project instead.

"Without really knowing what we're talking about, it's kind of hard to say what we should do," Fields said. 

Since the refined CFP is being presented just two weeks from now, the board decided to compromise by approving the City High project and delaying the decision on the Twain project until next meeting.

Sarah Swisher disagreed with this move, saying that while she agreed the fine arts project needed to be approved, she wouldn't vote yes unless both projects could be greenlighted. Swisher said with Twain set to be potentially affected by redistricting as much if not more than any school in the district, it would behoove the district to invest in a welcoming area for the Twain building.

"I am tired of ignoring some of the needs in our elementary schools," Swisher said. "For this particular school, at this particular time, I am very reluctant to postpone this project."

However, Swisher was outvoted, and the Twain project's fate will have to wait until next meeting to be decided.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

More from Iowa City