Construction of Center Grove’s new Emergency Operations Center, which will house first responders from multiple agencies, is delayed by at least three months, school officials said.
The school board was forced to turn down all bids for construction after they exceeded the amount of money Center Grove Community Schools planned to borrow for the multi-million-dollar project. The Emergency Operations Center, which will eventually house four staff from four local public safety departments including the Center Grove Police Department, the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office, and the White River Township and Bargersville fire departments, was set to open in January 2021, but that won’t happen.
The project needs to stay within its $5.17 million budget, school officials said.
The bid package for the project came in at $6.28 million. School officials and the design team will have to look at decreasing the square footage to trim costs by more than $1 million, Superintendent Rich Arkanoff said.
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Click here to purchase photos from this galleryIt will take at least two months to have a design up for re-bid, a bid package that comes in at or under $5.17 million is still no guarantee. If the bids are too high, Center Grove schools will have to start the process all over again, he said.
“We may not be able to get this re-bid,” Arkanoff said. “Maybe we’re unable to come up with a design that’s affordable. We just need to wait and see the timeline. If we shrink it down so much, it could be done quicker.”
Although the COVID-19 pandemic has created an economic downturn, Arkanoff said waiting around and resubmitting the project as designed in hopes of lower costs down the road would not be feasible, as the construction industry has not been hit as hard as other industries.
“The price of square footage overall has gone up,” Arkanoff said. “It’s not any one particular thing. It made it really hard to point at something to cut off. What we’re hearing from construction advisers is they don’t see a decrease in construction costs even with what’s going on in the economy. Construction is considered an essential business. It’s still going full force. Their concern and recommendation to us is don’t wait six months or more to re-bid. It will probably cost more.”
The district cleared space for the operations center by buying land and a one-story office building, which it would demolish, at 2812 S. Morgantown Road, across from Center Grove High School. Initial designs included two floors with offices, bunk rooms, bathrooms and locker rooms, separated by department, as well as a kitchen, White River Township Fire Chief Jeremy Pell said last May, when the project was approved.
The building was set to be 14,643 square feet, said Stacy Conrad, spokesperson for Center Grove schools.
Axis Architecture and Interiors of Indianapolis will be in charge of the redesign, while Hunt Construction Group of Indianapolis will serve as the construction manager. Hunt Construction will put together a timeline for construction once bids are approved, Arkanoff said.
There is also a delay in the completion of the first phase of the Center Grove High School renovation project. The project, which includes a new natatorium, is underway. The next phase will be to renovate the building the school’s current pool is in, make more room for the art department and add new, modernized classrooms, including flexible furniture, new carpeting and walls, and LED lights.
The $45 million project, which will be paid back over the next 20 years using property tax dollars within the current property tax allocation, will also pay for improved safety and security barriers, additional video surveillance, emergency messaging, door monitors and security screening, school officials have said.
The natatorium will include an Olympic-sized swimming pool, and was estimated to cost $17.6 million. It was set to be completed in April 2021, according to a January 2019 agreement with architecture firm Fanning/Howey Associates of Indianapolis. But that cost ballooned to $23.2 million last May after the board accepted a bid package, and the expected completion date was pushed back to June 2021. Now, it’s October 2021, Arkanoff said.
Construction of the natatorium began last summer.
“It’s (set for) October 2021, but it could go faster,” Arkanoff said. “COVID-19 impacts delivery and all of that. That slowed some work down but also, there are different design things getting bid out and so forth. That impacts it as well.”
The entire project is expected to be completed by the end of 2022, he said.
