Hempfield high school project plan is millions of dollars over budget, must be revised

Contract bids for the first phase of the Hempfield Area Senior High School renovation project are millions of dollars over budget, and the project must be revised before construction can begin.

That’s what architects from SitelogIQ told the Hempfield Area School Board at a public meeting Wednesday afternoon.

The architects estimated that the project in its current form would cost the district around $150 million, or $148 million with accepted alternates.

That’s a jump of $16 million to $18 million from the $132 million price tag that was predicted at a June town hall meeting. The total cost was calculated by using the bids that came in for the first phase of work along with estimates for the second phase.

So the school board and architects will go back and revise the plan construction plans.

The news is a shock to the district’s plans. Residents had expected to see shovels in the ground at the high school this month, as the 2023-2024 school year begins.

The interior of the high school building was expected to be gutted and renovated over the course of three years while leaving most of the exterior intact and building some additions.

High costs

SitelogIQ construction representative Mike Arnold said the swimming pool package and general construction portion of the package created the largest cost increases.

Those costs alone were $14 million to $15 million over budget.

He blamed labor shortages and price increases for materials like steel and concrete.

“There’s a definite difficulty in being able to man these projects,” Arnold said. “The labor pool situation continues to escalate in western PA, with the amount of work that is happening in this area.”

Arnold described the bid costs as “obviously unacceptable to us and to the district.”

“As we’ve come forth to the district, at each particular phase, whether it be schematic design, design-development, or construction document, we’ve presented an increase in the estimates,” he said. “That has been obviously not well received, and also, we obviously did not increase them enough. And that’s on us.”

Next steps

At a school board meeting Monday, the board will vote on rejecting the current bids, Superintendent Tammy Wolicki confirmed.

Construction will be moved to at least spring.

Wolicki says the board will be back to small-group meetings with the architects to determine “what reductions (we) can live with.”

A list of potential proposed reductions was provided to the board by SitelogIQ and Core Architects.

They range from smaller moves, like reducing the width of the pool from eight to six lanes, to more drastic ones, like demolishing part of H-wing and moving the programs there to another part of the high school, cutting a band room addition, and completely redesigning the planned physical education addition.

“Some are going to be more painful than others,” Wolicki said, emphasizing that the board has not committed to any revisions. “For us, it’s going to be a matter of deciding how we can reduce that scope.”

Building attendance changes remain

Hempfield ninth graders were set to attend classes in the former Harrold Middle School building for the duration of the project, and the board approved plans to redistribute middle school students from Hempfield’s three middle school buildings into two, reassigning the Harrold space for ninth graders.

Students will still follow these plans despite the construction delays, Wolicki confirmed.

“We’ll still be under construction before the school year is out. So it’s best to start the school year, and not disrupt the school year,” she said. “We’re going to keep things status quo going forward. If we can get shovels in the ground even if it’s March-April, it’s better — you can’t make that shift midstream.”

Wolicki expressed disappointment at the high costs, but focused on the road ahead.

“I think we were hoping that the bids would come in more aligned with the estimates that we were provided, but I think at the end of the day, we all recognize the fact that this is the reality that we have to work within,” she said. “We’re going to go back to the drawing board and make decisions that are best for kids and for our community.”