The Plymouth School Board has taken another step toward renovating its athletic facilities.
Tuesday night’s school board meeting presented bids for the construction of bleacher seats at the football fields. It’s part of a more comprehensive plan that will see updates to the ticket offices, restrooms, and stadium seating. In addition, the school corporation is looking to add square footage for office and meeting space at the administration building.
Plymouth Schools Director of Operations and Maintenance Dave Schoof says only one bid was received.
“There’s just not that many companies out there and a lot of them are bidding it under a GC (General Contractor) and they would bid it and put another contractor under them to coordinate it. But we’re going direct from the manufacturers,” says Schoof.
Plymouth had budgeted $750-thousand for this portion of the project. The lone bid presented a base of $665-thousand plus another $47-thousand for alternate projects such as wrapping for the bleachers and for the press box.
Plymouth-Canton School District in Michigan was used as an example for possible bid alternatives. The local school corporation came in below their estimates.
According to a company representative, Plymouth Schools bid the project at a time the cost for bleachers is at all time lows. Schoof says Plymouth is right in line with those projections.
“It looks at this time that materials are low for the project,” says Schoof. “It was competitive I felt compared to recent bids I noticed at Plymouth-Canton. It’s a favorable time to bid for completion in August of 2016.”
A bit of extra room for engineering and legal fees has been budgeted in the project.
The School Board approved the bid unanimously.
