Farmington High's Phase 3 Cost: $15.9 Million

SCHOOL BOARD OKS PACKAGE FOR ALL FACILITIES

LYNN KUTTER ENTERPRISE-LEADER Farmington School Board President Jeff Oxford, left, presents high school Principal Jon Purifoy with framed pages from a special newspaper section produced by the Enterprise-Leader to celebrate the first 100 days of the new high school building.
LYNN KUTTER ENTERPRISE-LEADER Farmington School Board President Jeff Oxford, left, presents high school Principal Jon Purifoy with framed pages from a special newspaper section produced by the Enterprise-Leader to celebrate the first 100 days of the new high school building.

FARMINGTON -- Voters in the May 22 school election supported Farmington School District's request to refinance five bond issues and extend debt and that means the district can now move ahead to complete all of Phase 3 for the high school campus.

Farmington School Board last week unanimously approved a total cost of $14 million to construct Phase 3 facilities: $11 million for the base facilities package and almost $3 million to include four alternate bids in the project.

In Other Business, the School Board:

• Increased school lunch prices by 5 cents for students. New cost is $2.70 for kindergarten through sixth grade and $2.95 for seventh through 12th grade. Adult prices will increase from $3.65 to $4, the actual cost of a meal. The recommendation was made to increase by 5 cents this year and another 5 cents next year so the increase would not be a lot all at once.

• Renewed a two-year lease with Northwest Arkansas Education Service Cooperative for the round building for an annual fee of $30,000.

• Renewed a one-year lease with NorthWest Arkansas Community College for $3.50 per square foot for 4,697 square feet for a total $16,439 annual fee.

• Amended its custodial bid with SG 360 Service Group from $41,000 per month to $43,000 per month for additional personnel and equipment.

Other costs are $31,000 for landscaping, $1.2 million for site package and almost $700,000 for utility package. The total cost of Phase 3 will be about $15.9 million.

"This is an exciting time for the district, going back to Tuesday night and the election," Superintendent Bryan Law said as the board discussed Phase 3 construction. "We had great support for the extension and the refinancing."

Voters supported Farmington's request to refinance five bond issues and extend debt another 35 years by a 613-323 vote. About 65 percent of the voters approved the request, compared to 35 percent against.

The district will refinance five issues that total $19.4 million in principal and offer a new bond issue with a principal amount of $29.5 million, which includes $9.2 million in new money that will be dedicated to finish Phase 3 at the high school, with some leftover for projects at the old high school.

The new bond issue would mature over a period of 35 years, according to the election ballot.

Law said the district plans to sell the bonds this summer and proceeds should be available in late July or early August.

Farmington will use proceeds from the new bond issue and about $8 million in a capital improvements reserve fund to pay for Phase 3.

The project's construction manager, Kinco Construction, presented the construction costs to the School Board at its May 29 meeting.

The base facilities package is $11 million for a new football/soccer stadium, track, football bleachers, pressbox, concession stand/restrooms, ticket booth and a field house with offices, locker rooms and a weight room.

As part of the bid process, Kinco asked for separate bids for four add-on alternates, in case bids came in too high.

The outcome of the election allowed the district to include all four alternates. Alternate #1 was the most expensive, which will be almost $2.7 million for an indoor practice facility and cheer/dance locker rooms.

The bids for the other three alternates added up to about $318,000 and include bleachers and a pressbox for the track facility, two parking lots and brick wraps around the four steel columns for the scoreboard.

Mark Haguewood with Hight Jackson Associates, architects for Phase 3, said the school is in budget for the cost of the total project.

Tyson Reimer with Kinco told the board, "We're ready to get going and ready to get started."

Bob Archer, also with Kinco, said the company's priority will be to complete the track so the team can get on it in December for practice. He did not know if the track facility would be ready for the spring 2019 season. There will be some issues getting players to the track because of construction on the stadium and other facilities.

"We'll have to come up with a game plan," Archer said.

Kinco plans to have the stadium and other facilities ready in time for the 2019-20 school year.

After the meeting, Law said the outcome of the election shows school patrons want the district to finish all of Phase 3 at one time.

"When we started, we started out thinking, well we're going to build a football field and a track," Law said. "We've always had the push to do the project all at once but until we had the funding, that was difficult to step out on. I think there's no question looking at it, is that's what people wanted us to do."

Many students and student groups will be touched by the new facilities, Law said.

"We've had track teams with no track. We've had a push here to start soccer for quite a few years and we've not had a facility to do that. A time and place for cheer and dance, we've not been able to provide that. So we're going to be able to include a lot of students in this that have not had much."

Now that the district knows it will be able to finish all of Phase 3, the next step will be to make plans to address needs at the Farmington Junior High building, he added.

General News on 06/06/2018