Project Changes Helping to Keep Costs Down

At the end of last semester we received bids to begin construction on the project. Bids for the project came in approximately $7,000,000 over budget. Prompted by the unpredictability of stable prices for building materials over a 4-year period, it has been decided to solicit bids separately for each of the two phases of this project. This will shorten the window for estimating costs for building materials from 4 years to 2 years. The shorter window will result in bids that are less inflated. Bidding for Project 1 will occur within a few months and construction should begin this summer.

Savings in the overall project will be achieved through value engineering, square footage reduction and perhaps reassignment of some auxiliary funds. We’ll explain what each of those means in future posts.

Collectively, these changes will maintain the goal to achieve expanded student space while allowing us to be fiscally responsible with the money being used to fund the project. The project committee is scheduling open forums for February, as well as providing updates to the campus and student leaders through established meetings. If you have any questions about these changes please let us know.