Possible price tag for new Rock Island school stuns officials

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By Sheena Dooley | Tuesday, May 13, 2008 |

Rock Island’s plan to open its first new school in more than three decades was dealt a major setback when construction bids came in significantly higher than expected.

Leaders in the Rock Island-Milan School District said Tuesday that they were shocked when bids for the new math and science magnet school were nearly $4 million higher than the $10.2 million price tag they had anticipated.

“I’ve never seen a $200 per square-foot school in the Quad-Cities,” said Mike Oberhaus, Rock Island’s associate superintendent for operations and quality. “We need to go back and see what occurred to take us to (that price).”

The district received five bids for the project last week, with the lowest coming in at almost $14.1 million. The highest was nearly $15.4 million.

The higher than expected cost won’t change the district’s plans to build the 16,000-square-foot school at the former Villa de Chantal site, 2101 16th St., but it could mean the school won’t open by August 2009, said Mike Oberhaus, Rock Island’s associate superintendent for operations and quality.

Officials won’t know whether that’s the case until they pinpoint what caused the price to increase. They are working with Shive-Hattery, the Moline architectural firm that the district hired to design the school, to find answers, which they plan to present to the board at its May 27 meeting.

“Each and every one of us was staggered by these (estimates),” said Bruce Harding, an architect at Shive-Hattery. “I have never seen this in my life. To see this happen just blows me away.”

David Rockwell, school board member, questioned what the bids for the Villa project meant in terms of the three other large projects Rock Island plans to put out to bid next month. The district is also planning major additions to the Rock Island Primary Academy and Eugene Field and Longfellow elementary schools at a combined estimated cost of $6.4 million.

“I have serious concerns on the other three major additions,” Rockwell said. “I’m hoping we are not in the same ballpark with the others.”

Oberhaus said the architects were confident at this point in time that bids for the three additions would come in close to the estimates.

When district leaders sold taxpayers on their “Building Excellence” plan this winter, they said the new school would cost $9.1 million. That figure increased just more than $1 million in recent months because of increased square-footage, a geothermal system and additional cost allowances for construction, Oberhaus said.

Rock Island residents in February approved a 10-year extension of their current tax rate to support the district’s plan to overhaul its elementary and junior high schools. The extension is expected to generate about $22 million, which fell in line with what administrators at the time said the plan would cost.

“We need to get more data before we jump to conclusions,” Oberhaus said. “It’s very frustrating because you don’t have the data and are spinning your wheels and getting no where.”

In other action, the board voted 5-0 to appoint former member Bill Cleaver to fill a vacancy left by Steve Clark, who stepped down from his position last month to take a job with the Illinois Association of School Boards.

Cleaver lost a bid for re-election last year after serving nine years on the board. He will fill the remainder of Clark’s term, which expires April 2009.

Sheena Dooley can be contacted at (563) 383-2363 or sdooley@qctimes.com.