Inside the old Southern Hancock maintenance on Monday, Sept. 6, 2022. Officials with Southern Hancock signed with a firm, Envoy, Inc. of Fishers, to build their new maintenance building and addition at their transportation building, but that firm has now backed out of the projects.
NEW PALESTINE — It was just a few short months ago officials with the Community School Corp. of Southern Hancock County were excited to announce plans to create a new maintenance building and make renovations to their transportation building, but now both projects are on hold.
The district’s school board approved a $2.62 million contract for a new maintenance building and additions to their transportation building in September. The two separate projects were expected to start shortly after the funding was approved. However, heading into the new year, district officials say both projects have been delayed but will be revised in the spring.
The decision comes after officials with the school district say the construction team which was awarded the contract informed district officials they could no longer do the work.
“The team we had earmarked for the job just isn’t going to be able to do it,” Southern Hancock Director of Communications Wes Anderson said.
District officials had originally released plans last January for the idea of a brand new maintenance building, which was to be constructed just south off the new Bittner Road back entrance to the school campus. However, the current maintenance building on the north side of the home bleachers by the New Palestine High School football field will now have to do until they can get a construction crew lined up to do the work some time down the road.
As part of that project district, officials had also released renovation plans for their current transportation building, which sits at the south end of the campus off CR 500W. On the west side of that building, a new design called for a bump-out for a couple of offices to be added. That part of the project has also been put on hold and will be revisited down the road as well, Anderson said.
Due to the size of those two projects, smaller in nature than most school construction builds or renovations, district officials have had problems from the start getting construction companies interested. After months of trying to find at least one company to bid on the project, officials finally settled with Envoy, Inc., Fishers to handle the $2.62 million projects last fall and announced the bid in September before the company recently backed out, district officials said.
Had the project bid out last February as district officials had originally wanted, both projects would be completed by now and the district would have saved a lot of money. Several months ago, the maintenance building would have cost around $1 million to build, while the recent cost from the bid this past September skyrocketed to $1.85 million. The renovation work at the transportation building was expected to cost around $362,500.
District officials say those prices might go higher down the road, but there is nothing they can do about it with the cost of construction materials continuing to increase.
As for the major construction project going on inside NPHS, where a $49 million renovation is underway, students are still being taught in makeshift classrooms inside the new fieldhouse since the school’s new educational wing is still under construction. Unfortunately, district officials noted, there is no official end date in sight.
“We’re still having a delay in getting those electrical components we’ve needed since last summer,” Anderson said.
Students were supposed to be out of the makeshift classrooms at the start of the current school year but, to date, the new wing, where the classrooms are located and the new cafeteria sits, are not complete.
“There is working being done and we’ve made good progress,” Anderson said “But, we’re at the mercy of the material and right now we just don’t have what we need to close up those walls and get the rooms finished.”
