Vannoy is awarded QZAB projects here

Vannoy Construction was deemed the low bidder on three Qualified Zone Academy Bond (QZAB) projects at Sparta School and Alleghany High School, according to Alleghany County Schools QZAB Project Manager Dan Pardue.

Projects bid together were a T-ball field and a new front entrance at Sparta and visitors bleachers at the high school.

Vannoy offered a base bid of $219,212, while Saddler Construction bid $267,946.53 and Blue Ridge Enterprises gave a base bid of $284,000.

Meanwhile, each company offered alternate bids if rock was not removed at the site of the T-ball field. Vannoy's bid deducted $2,500 if they did not remove the rock, Blue Ridge Enterprises' would deduct $6,300 and Saddler Construction would cut $14,000.

Pardue said, "The total budget for QZAB for those three projects was $237,000, but as you may remember, the bulk of that is $180,000 for Sparta School for the drive and the parking lot. We did ask Vannoy…to split out especially the bleachers because they were running a little bit more than what we would have expected."

He commented the concept of separating the T-ball field from Sparta School had been mentioned, noting Vannoy had made plans to bring a large piece of equipment to the location in the vicinity of the school bus garage to take rock out of the T-ball field.

"If we didn't take the rock out, we'd have to reduce the size of the field, Pardue explained. "Right now, it's 150 feet from home base to the outside fence. By leaving the rock, it would reduce it 10 to 25 feet. It would be a minimum size T-ball field. If the decision was you didn't want to move forward with the T-ball field and you would have to rebid Sparta School, you're probably looking $90,000, $100,000."

He continued, "Again, they weren't really interested in bringing it out because it's a lot of the same equipment… Vannoy has a place here where they can get the material and I think they were probably going to need some of the topsoil off Sparta School to go down to the ball field…"

Changing the topic, Cox noted the cost of the bleacher project and the cost of replacing fire alarm systems at three of the four schools in the county have come in higher than anticipated.

"We had pretty good estimates on most of the projects…but the bleachers and the fire alarms were the two we were off pretty substantially," stated Cox. "Initial estimates that we received didn't have everything taken into account. Basically, it's going to come down to the board looking at where you want to prioritize replacing those fire alarm systems or doing the bleacher project. I don't think there's going to be enough money in the budget in these other places to do it all…"

Board member Brad Mabe then asked if the visitor bleachers at the high school are "up-to-code safe," to which Pardue replied that while they are "well-built," they are not up to code, adding "code is not a huge issue other than it would be hard to do much remodeling." While addressing reprioritizing the QZAB projects, Cox told the board, "I need to send a report into the state indicating where we're going to be spending more on projects than what was indicated in the budget, also where we're going to take funds that were left over from projects we didn't need the full budget."