Firm hired to remodel high school

Moon Area School Board has hired a New Castle architectural firm to design a new middle school and remodeling work for the high school.
The board voted 5-4 recently to hire Eckles Architecture Inc. to design a new middle school, rather than a new high school, that a previous board advocated.
Eckles will receive 6 percent of the costs of the new construction project and 7 percent of the costs of the remodeling at the high school.
The board hired Hayes Design Group of Bethel Park to design the remodeling for McCormick Elementary School in the eastern part of Moon with a 6-3 vote, with board members Mark Scappe, Mary Tobin and Lisa Wolowicz dissenting. The closed school building most recently had been rented to USAirways as a training center.
Board president Mark Limbruner said McCormick could be reopened as an elementary school by September. He said the new and remodeled secondary buildings should be completed by 2010.
Limbruner said the Hayes fee will be about 6 percent, with extra incentives if the building is open for the next school year.
Scappe, who dissented in the votes on the secondary schools, along with Peggy Bell, Tobin and Wolowicz, said he did so because the combined project cost of the two schools would be $73 million, along with an additional $7 million for the McCormick work.
"(School director Benjamin) Bonham said the board had only $65 million to spend. I said, 'You don't have all the funds. Until you get the funds together, I have to vote no,' " Scappe said.
"I feel this project is going to cost way more than they say it is," Bell said. "I think we should have stuck with the original plan to build a new high school."
But Bonham said construction manager URS "seems to think $65 million is a reasonable budget, using simple design and not being extravagant. They (the previous board) borrowed the money, and we have to spend it," he said.
A consultant to the current board, Thomas & Williamson, earlier this year recommended replacing the middle school.
Bonham said the most recent estimates by the administration showed just under $80 million is available for construction and remodeling.
"The initial bond has appreciated," he said.
Bonham said most board members scrapped the former high school project because it cost too much. "We couldn't get contractors to do value engineering," a way to reduce costs by carefully evaluating each segment of a project, he said.
Thomas & Williamson told the board that the original estimate for the high school, $47 million to $48 million, was too conservative. Bonham said the price could have reached $58 million just for the high school.
The planned high school remodeling will include taking the building down to the studs and replacing all of the electrical and mechanical systems, Bonham said.
Scappe said he had a problem with working on and opening up McCormick before meeting building needs at other schools. "I have a problem with opening (McCormick) up first" before the other schools are attended to, Scappe said.
"I felt we needed to put it to a referendum. Let the taxpayers decide if they want that building," he said.
Supporters of opening up McCormick say the district needs the space because its elementary schools are filled to capacity.