School officials seek more funds to meet rising costs

CELINA - Officials are coordinating with the state to see if more money can be released to Celina City Schools to help cover rising construction costs for a 7-12 school building set to start going up in summer 2024.

Celina school board members recently heard a mixed bag of updates on the $126.8 million building project which is being pursued in phases.

As to the bad news, district facilities director Phil Metz said construction costs on the 7-12 building have increased considerably. The building will be constructed on the existing Celina Primary School site, beginning next summer.

"We were anticipating 5 to 6% increase. We're upwards of 20%," Metz said at a recent school board meeting. "The state recognized that as well. So, every so often they initiate new cost sets which say 'this is the amount of money that we're going to give the district to do the construction.""

Project architect Garmann Miller is essentially in a reassessment process with the state, looking at things such as minimum square footage required by Ohio Facilities Construction Commission, Metz said.

"In the past, there have been other projects where this has been allowed and the state has raised the money," Metz said. "We're hoping that that's going to be the case as well and they grant more money for our project."

The state should have an answer sometime this month, his said.

District voters in May 2021 narrowly approved a roughly $75.9 million bond issue and a 0.5-mill levy to build a middle/high school and renovate the intermediate school with an addition that will house preschool-sixth grades. The total project is estimated at $126.8 million. Bonds issued to raise the district's share of the project were issued with net interest just under 2.8% and will be paid back over 37 years.

The OFCC signed off on the release of $51 million in state funds for the project.

Touching on positive developments, Metz said the consolidated pre-K-sixth grade facility which will include a 115,000-square-foot addition to the existing Celina Intermediate School building at 227 Portland Street is coming along nicely.

The addition itself will contain classrooms for grades PK-3 and is going up west of the intermediate school, while the 81,000-square-foot intermediate school will be renovated and reprogramed to serve grades 4-6, according to the Bulldog Building Project website.

A gymnasium that doubles as a storm shelter is progressing.

"All the roof trusses are set in place for that," Metz said. "They poured the concrete floor slab. That's now in place for that. They're putting a metal roof down on top of those trusses."

It's "a massive structure" and the walls are "pretty thick," Metz said.

As part of construction requirements, school officials had thought they would have to install a communications system to ensure emergency personnel could communicate outside the building to the Multi-Agency Radio Communication Systems radios.

MARCS allow first responders to seamlessly communicate with themselves and other agencies at incident sites. The technology is advanced and costly to acquire and operate.

However, after further testing it was determined the radio signal is strong enough without the communications system enhancement, saving the district $80,000, Metz said.

The expense would have been picked up by a $100,000 grant as part of Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine's K-12 School Safety Grant Program. It was announced in February that Celina City Schools would receive $100,000 each for the elementary, intermediate, middle and primary schools for a total of $400,000 through the program.

Celina High School and Mercer County Head Start will each receive $100,000 safety grants, according to a November news release.

Metz said the $80,000 would be reallocated toward camera systems.

The 115,000-square-foot addition to the existing Celina Intermediate School building is expected to be ready for the 2024-2025 school year.

Renovations of the existing intermediate school building will continue through the fall of 2024.

Abatement and demolition of the existing west building will occur in the spring and summer of 2025, and all remaining site construction will be completed prior to the start of school in 2025, according to a school news release.