The Christian County School Board voted to move forward with requesting proposals for construction management services with the Hopkinsville-Christian County Academy consolidation project.
This comes after the board recently rejected the bids that came in for construction of the facility—the base cost bids without any additional add-ons were about $203 million from A&K Construction and $199 million from DW Wilburn, over double the initial estimate when the process began and much higher than more recent projections that accounted for inflation.
Assistant Superintendent Josh Hunt says they’re hopeful this new avenue will be another option that will allow them to move forward with the project with more feasible results.
Board attorney Jack Lackey explained that a construction manager would represent them with contractors, go over bids for individual items within the project and make recommendations to the board.
Hunt says it would have been insanity to try the exact same method that got the overpriced bids again, so this was just another option. With board member Tiffany Brame not present and after much discussion, the board did choose to go the construction management route, with member Mike Walker voting ‘no’.