D93 starting over with proposals for high school construction project

It’s back to the beginning for Bonneville School District 93. The district will be opening the application process for construction companies to build a new high school. This comes after D93 learned the initial construction company of choice didn’t meet state requirements, and the second construction company of choice had application problems.

“We want to be good stewards of the money the public has entrusted to us,” said Brian McBride, the board chairman for D93. “The recommendation that’s coming down from the administration to the board is that the best solution is just to do the process over again.”

The school district will release its first advertisement for construction firms on Tuesday, March 1, and a second advertisement on Tuesday, March 8. Firms interested in working with the district to build the new high school will have until March 15 to submit an application. The district hopes to perform interviews between March 23 and 25.

Most requirements will stay the same, but the district does say they will probably take more consideration into whether a construction firm is in-state or out-of-state.

D93 chose the Utah firm, Hughes Construction, over local firms as Hughes had built dozens of high schools.

“During the initial consultation with our committee, the idea of local verses non-local was a big part of our discussions,” said John Pymm, D93’s director of safety, facilities, and operations. “However, based on the feedback we got from community members, the new rubric that we put together may have award points for local folks as compared to folks from out-of-state.”

D93 said they don’t believe the delay in picking a contractor will delay the time frame of the high school. “It’s not going to delay the process of building the school,” said McBride. “It’s just going to delay getting our contracts on board with the architects.”

McBride said the architects and designers tasked with designing the high school will continue to move forward, despite not having a contractor to immediately work with.

“We’ll have this school ready in the fall of 2018,” said McBride.

2 Corrections: An earlier version of this story said the district is looking for construction bids. The district is looking for proposals, not bids. A bid has a financial price tag, a proposal does not. Also the original article stated that only one Idaho firm had built one high school in the past. That was in error and has been removed.