Schools to look at several new sites for bus garage

The Alleghany County Board of Education voted during its monthly meeting to have architects with Pinnacle Architecture of Matthews evaluate different sites for a new bus garage that would require less grading in order to save money on the project.

The bids for the project came in at about double the amount alloted by the Alleghany County Commissioners for the project about two years ago. The commission had allotted $250,000 for the work, but the low bid for the project, submitted by Dave’s Construction of Eden, was $497,420. Superintendent Jeff Cox explained two options: the first was to place the new school bus garage building on the site of the existing building; and the second was to ask the architects to evaluate alternate, more level locations for the structure.

“The good part of the redesign is it would be more cost-effective,” Cox told board members of the first option. “It would disrupt current operations less than it would it would to tear down the building and then rebuild it right in its place. We could proceed immediately with this option; they had begun doing some sketches of what this looks like.”

Cox then pointed out downsides of that option.

“First of all, in the bus garage, there is an underground oil tank that would have to be taken out. If there is no leak when this occurs, we’d be fine, that would be in the

School personnel are looking at plans that would place a new school bus garage on the site of the existing garage, as well as options to place a new garage near the garage building. The existing building is too small to accommodate some buses.

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