T-R PHOTO BY LANA BRADSTREAM - Kevin Eipperle with FEH Design and Travis Schwartz with Larson Construction give the Marshalltown Community School District Board of Education updates on the tornado safe room and the high school Career and Technical Education wing construction projects. They said there will be no further change orders for those projects.

Construction projects were a main source of discussion during the Monday Marshalltown Community School District Board of Education meeting.

Board members, with the exception of Leah Stanley, voted in favor of approving the construction plans and costs of the Franklin Field project, which is part of the recently passed Reimagine Miller bond issue. Adam Daters with Clapsaddle Garber Associates told the board the project is $1.8 million less than the last budget they saw.

“That has to do with the preliminary review and bids we received,” he said. “The majority of that under budget, I’ll say bucket, came from the field construction itself.”

Daters said bids to work on the drainage system under the field were less than what was estimated.

“Don’t apologize for that,” Superintendent Theron Schutte told him, drawing laughter.

After the vote, Schutte reminded the members there will be a special meeting on Thursday, and it will largely be an update on the Reimagine Miller project.

Tornado safe room

FEH Design President Kevin Eipperle and Larson Construction Project Manager Travis Schwartz presented updates and change orders for both the tornado safe room and the Marshalltown High School Career and Technical Education (CTE) wing.

Eipperle said the $24,550 change order included smaller closing items and will be the final. Many of the items are small, such as adding signage under recommendation of the Marshalltown Fire Marshal and adding outlets for a popcorn machine.

“The biggest one, which is about $10,000, is the water service location,” he said.

Schwartz said landscaping and getting the grass to grow will be addressed this spring.

CTE

Eipperle said the $90,218 CTE change order includes seven items and is also the final. The largest item is $48,638 for constructing a link between the building and the greenhouse.

“The reason that one is there is the initial greenhouse package that was specified included the link, and we did not go with that kit,” he said. “We didn’t believe, once we saw what it really was, that it wasn’t the quality of a greenhouse that you wanted. So we got a much larger greenhouse that was better quality, and at the same time the fire marshal said we need to move the building further away and it needed to be noncombustible, as well. So, the new greenhouse did not include the link.”

Schwartz said a humidistat for the greenhouse, which was on backorder, should have arrived yesterday and will be operational this week.

Unlike the safe room project, Eipperle said most of the CTE items are finished, or close to complete.

“Most of the rest of this work is needed, but there are a few more punchlist items that need to be addressed in the project,” Eipperle said. “This captures the vast majority of items.”

Schutte told the board a lot of the CTE change orders toward the end of the project came about as a result of accommodating teacher requests.

“If we’re going to spend this kind of money, and make these kinds of changes, we want people to be happy with it,” he said.

Schutte told Schwartz and Eipperle it was a pleasure working with them on the projects.

“We are going to be happy to put them to bed and focus on future projects,” he said. “It has been a good experience.”

Before the board meeting, a public hearing on the proposed budget tax notice was held. No members of the public attended or submitted comments.

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Contact Lana Bradstream at 641-753-6611 ext. 210 or lbradstream@timesrepublican.com.