NEW WASHINGTON — The Buckeye Central Board of Education received a facilities project update from members of the Buehrer Group on Friday afternoon.
The district will be building a new bus garage and an addition to the district’s K-12 building that includes preschool and kindergarten rooms, a STEAM room and robotics lab.
Kent Buehrer, the president of the Buehrer Group, said the estimated cost for the project $8,915,150.
The sitework, which includes parking spaces, getting the area ready, storm sewer work, and relocating water lines, will account for about $1.2 million of the total projected cost. There will be a little more than $60,000 in demolition, $96,000 in earth work, $90,000 in erosion control, storm sewer work will be around $328,000, sanitary sewer works will be $21,000, waterline work is about $88,000, paving is about $385,000 and striping will be roughly $5,000.
The projected finish date for the preschool rooms originally was Sept. 20, 2020, but because of the complexity of the construction, October 30, 2020 is the goal date.
Board members discussed concerns regarding the start of preschool students, including when to hire teachers if they were to only do second-semester preschool. Options given were potentially using the kindergarten rooms, which should be done before the preschool rooms, as preschool rooms until their rooms are done, or another option was using the new multipurpose room they will be building as a preschool classroom.
Board president Missy McDougal asked Kent Buehrer when site work will actually begin, to which Buehrer said it will depend on what this winter’s weather is going to be like.
The next meeting is Nov. 14 at 7 p.m.