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Plans for renovations and expansion of the Rockbridge Innovation Center – formerly known as the Floyd S. Kay Vocational Center – continue after the Rockbridge County School Board selected the project’s general contractor at its July meeting last week.
The Board received three bids during a month-and-a-halflong process, choosing the one submitted by the lowest bidder, KNA Contracting, a company based in Roanoke. The bid was just over $14 million.
The School Board approved a notice to proceed with KNA Contracting pending final funding approval from the Board of Supervisors. The supervisors will discuss the project at its meeting on Monday, July 24.
Should the supervisors approve the funding and the contract is then finalized, KNA will be approved to proceed with the project as of July 25.
The low bid of $14,097,696 is nearly double the division’s original estimate of $7.7 million from several years ago.
Superintendent Dr. Phillip Thompson said he was not surprised by the significant increase of the project’s price tag.
He told The News-Gazette in an email this week, “The original estimate ($7.7 million) that we used was from the division-wide feasibility study that was conducted by a different architectural and engineering firm than our current A&E [firm], Spectrum Design. The feasibility study was also conducted prior to the Covid pandemic when building costs were much lower. With these factors in mind, as well as the fact that building costs increase annually, I’m not surprised by the higher bid number we received.”
To alleviate some of the financial pressures of the project, the division has applied for several grants. It was awarded $2.4 million from the Virginia Department of Education’s School Construction Assistance Program grant.
While the bids came in much higher than anticipated from pre-pandemic days, Thompson said he believes that they were well in line with current costs.
He said, “$14 million is a lot of money. We all wish the bids would have come in even lower. However, we had a competitive bidding process in which the bids were not that far apart from one another. This tells me that the bids are probably in the area in which they need to be in order to complete this project well. It also suggests that should the Board of Supervisors choose to fund this project, the taxpayers’ dollars will be well spent.”
The superintendent also believes the project is critical in developing the district’s CTE program.
“The School Board, the Board of Supervisors, families and community members, as well as students and staff members, have known for quite some time that this project is long overdue. Over 71 percent of all students at RCHS utilize and benefit from the educational opportunities available in our current Career and Technical Education center,” Thompson told The News-Gazette.
He continued, “It is absolutely exciting to think about potentially soon having a newly renovated Rockbridge Innovation Center for our students. Our entire Rockbridge County community benefits greatly from the educational experiences that occur in this facility and our students deserve to have a modern, updated facility with the necessary tools to prepare them for their future careers and lives.”
