Northampton Board of Supervisors approves $82 million for new Middle & High School Construction

The Northampton County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the construction of the new Middle School and High School at a cost not exceeding $82 million Tuesday Night. The vote is the culmination of more than five years of work on this specific project.

The School Board also unanimously approved a resolution supporting the project at their last meeting.

After an initial bid of $84 million spooked the Supervisors, cost cutting meetings took place in hopes of getting a number closer to $60 million. Following a $16.8 million grant from the Commonwealth of Virginia, the project was sent back out to bid only to come back with a price tag of $98.8 million. After several meetings with the architectural firm and the general contractor, a working committee was able to lower the price of the project to $81.3 million. A major concession was the postponement of the renovation of the CTE facility, a savings of over $6 million. Members of the working committee are betting they can find grant money to complete this leg of the renovation rather than including it in the price of construction.

According to Superintendent Dr. Lisa Martin and Finance Director Brooke Thomas, $89.7 million dollars is available for the project from various funding sources, including bond sales, a special sales tax, school board funds, funds from the General Assembly, the County’s undesignated fund balance among others.

The project will be completed in three phases over a 30 month period and will include the demolition of much of the current facility. 43,000 square feet of the existing 1954 section wil be demolished, 66,000 quare feet will be renovated in the existing 1978 addition and 86,000 feet in new construction will be added.

During a discussion on what such a move would do to the County’s finances and capital improvements, County Administrator Charlie Kolakowski and Finance Director John Chandler said they felt the County was in good shape as far as big ticket maintenance items. Chandler also added the County’s payments on the $50 million in bond sales would be fairly level for the next 10-15 years.

“The great news tonight is we are going to do this with no tax increase and no additional borrowing,” said Board Chairman John Coker. “The Commonwealth of Virginia was the savior here. We probably wouldn’t be sitting here if it wasn’t for that $16.8 million, so thank you, thank you, thank you… Everybody we talked to about this said ‘listen, sign it now, because next year it’s going to be $3 – $5 million dollars more.’ Everything is going up, no matter who you talk to… So if we don’t do this now it’s just going to be more next year.”

The project will be awarded to the M.B. Kahn Construction company. Superintendent Martin will be executing the contract on behalf of the County.