Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Construction bids come in low

The bids are in.

After a long, exhaustive process that has included a special election, a promise of funding from the Arkansas Department of Education and a reduction in promised state aid, the Gurdon School District now knows exactly what it will cost to build a proposed 1,200 seat auditorium on the Gurdon High School campus.

Gurdon Superintendent Bobby Smithson, architect Wayne Trull and contractors who submitted bids for the project met on Tuesday, Dec. 11, to open the bids. Each bid included a base amount to construct the auditorium, a band and choral facility and an administrative suite that would house the superintendent and his staff.

The bids all contained two deductive alternates. Deductive alternates are parts of the project that can be taken out of the plans, thus saving construction costs. The deductive alternates on the auditorium project were the band and choral facility and the administration suite.

Four firms - none of them local - submitted bids for the project. The first bid received was from Wade Abernathy Inc. of Mt. Ida in the amount of $3,383,000 for a base bid with deductive alternates lowering the total to $2,468,057.

The second bid, from Alltech Inc. of Texarkana, Texas, listed a base bid of $3,740,000. The deductive alternates bring the cost down to $2,665,000.

A bid from Contech Contractors Inc. listed the base bid as $4,025,000 with deductive alternates of $583,000 and $293,000, bringing the cost to $3,149,000.

The last bid opened was from G.A.G. Builders Inc. The base amount listed was $3,370,000 with deductive alternates bringing the bid down to $2,688,000.

These are excellent numbers, Trull said. He said he originally was told the cost of the project would exceed $4 million.

Smithson called Tuesdays meeting a formality because the final decision to accept or reject bids will be up to the entire school board. The board will meet to consider the bids on Dec. 18.

Smithson told contractors that the board will make a decision at that time. We will let you know something by Wednesday of next week, he said.

With the lowest bid exceeding $3.3 million, the school board may have to decide not to build a portion of the project. Smithson said that the district will have just more than $3 million available for the project, brining them just short of the lowest bid.

The school received $1.9 million for the project after selling bonds to restructure its debt. The restructuring was approved by district patrons in a special election in May.

More than $500,000 will be received in partnership funding from the Arkansas Department of Education. This amount reflects a reduction of about $300,000 from the states original commitment. After promising more than $800,000, the department said it had made a mistake.

Smithson said the district would likely be very close to having enough money to build the entire complex had the state not lowered its funding amount.

The remainder of the funds for the project have come from private fund raising and donations.