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Anderson School District One Superintendent Wayne Fowler said this was the largest pool of bidders he's seen in 21 years. As a result, the district received preliminary bids for the new Powdersville High School that were nearly 25% below estimates. The project was estimated to cost $38 million.
By James T. Hammond
jhammond@scbiznews.com
Published July 2, 2009
Preliminary bids for the new Powdersville High School, estimated to cost $38 million to build, came in almost $10 million below that figure on Wednesday, again illustrating the deep discounts construction companies are willing to swallow to win contracts in the current deep recession.
Anderson School District One Superintendent Wayne Fowler, pictured, said the bids are a sharp departure from most of his experience in building schools. In more prosperous times, he would be sharpening his pencil to trim features from new-school plans to stay within a construction budget.
But not this time. The recession that has slashed revenue from his operating budget has also caused construction firms to reduce their prices 10% to 25% as they seek scarce work in Anderson District One’s $85 million school construction and renovation program.
Not only has he not found it necessary to scale back plans, but Fowler has been able to add two classrooms apiece at two schools already undergoing expansions.
The building program amounts to a mini-stimulus program that has attracted bidders that might not have looked at the projects in fatter times.
“We have been getting a boardroom full of bidders,” Fowler said. “In my 21 years in school administration, this has been the largest pool of bidders I’ve ever seen.”
At left, Fowler and his staff open bids at a recent meeting.
Thirteen contractors bid on the site preparation for Powdersville High School, a piece of the project already awarded, said Bill Myers, vice president of the construction management division at M.B. Kahn Construction Co., and project manager for the Anderson One program. In better economic times, Myers would have expected four to six bidders. The low bid was $1.4 million, a jaw-dropping 39% compared with previous estimates of $2.3 million, Myers said. Ten of the bids were below the earlier $2.3 million estimate, he said.
Myers said he has mixed emotions about the savings being realized by the district.
“As the owner’s agent, we’re really pleased for the owner,” Myers said. “But we’re also a general contractor, and I feel the pain.”
Myers said he does not believe any of the winning contractors set out to lose money on a project. But he said they are bidding at or near their cost just to keep their employees and subcontractors working.
“It trickles down to the people who sell the blackboards, or the bricks. Right now everyone is willing to lower their margins,” Myers said. “It’s a mystery to me how prices have fallen so low.”
The high and low bids on parts of the project include:
General building
Low – Edcon Inc., $11,674,000
High – Yeargin Potter Shakelford Construction, $12,943,000
Masonry
Low – Pettit Construction Co. Inc., $3,412,976
High – Mack’s Masonry, $5,763,000
Plumbing
Low – Southern Piping Co., $1,499,000
High – Triad Mechanical, $2,424,849
Heating and Air Conditioning
Low – Gainesville Mechanical Inc., $3,850,000
High – Bahnson Inc., $4,925,000
Electrical
Low – H.R. Allen Inc., $3685,000
High – Aldo Co., $4,200,000
The Anderson District One school board was scheduled to meet Thursday to review the preliminary bids.
For more information on this story, see the July 6, 2009 print edition of GSA Business
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