The design that the committee developed includes modernizing the existing gym, music room and shops as well as repurposing the commons area to be a library and business lab. New construction will include a new commons, office spaces and 11 new classroom spaces. All together, 56% of our budget will be spent on new construction and the remainder on renovation of existing space.
Ross' team did several cost analyses beginning with not using any of the existing structure and building an entirely new facility. At $384/s.f. for 78,000 s.f., that represents a construction cost of $29.9 million. When the team factored in soft costs (permits, sales tax, consulting fees, etc.) the project cost becomes $41.9 million. This is $15 million over our budget. In order to build a brand new school within our current budget, we would need to reduce the size of our school to about 49,000 s.f. or about the size of the gym.
The Design Committee felt that a hybrid design that incorporates new construction and renovation was the most responsible use of resources.
It was remarkable to me that our final schematic design was delivered two years to the day of when Chuck Caley first proposed the idea that we could build a new school almost as cheaply as remodeling. To see Chuck's presentation to the Facilities Advisory Committee from April 25, 2017 go to this link. Chuck envisioned a school that would retain the gym and shops and would build new in between. Costs have escalated since his presentation and the design is quite different, but the germ of the new school was there even two years ago.
Now that the schematic design is complete, DOWA-IBI and their team will begin working on the thousands of details that go into developing the design into construction documents that can be used for bidding. A Construction Committee comprised of a few TSD staff and a few community members will begin advising DOWA-IBI on these designs. There will be community meetings where we'll be reporting out on progress as well as regular updates to this blog. If you missed last night's meeting, you can watch a video of the meeting in its entirety at this link. The sound and videography are not the best, but you can get a sense of what transpired.
We're excited to bring this new school to the community. It'll be a tremendous improvement and source of pride for Toledo. If you have questions about the process or plans, please contact me at the office.
