The Festus R-6 indoor fieldhouse and gym construction project, now estimated to cost about $30 million, should start in early March, district officials said.
Discussions about the plans for the fieldhouse began in January 2021; it had an estimated cost of $14 million. But in November 2022, the Festus Board of Education voted unanimously to put the project on hold due to the need for more classroom space because of increased student enrollment and ballooning cost estimates.
Creating that extra space took priority, and the district has since built an addition to Festus Middle School and is building an addition to Festus Intermediate School to add classrooms, they said.
Superintendent Nicki Ruess said the gym-fieldhouse project is being funded with revenue from Proposition F that voters approved in April 2019, authorizing a 59-cent tax levy increase to fund multiple improvements across the district.
The school board on Feb. 5 approved several bid packages for site work totaling $3,990,007 to get the project moving during a special meeting. In addition, they approved a second motion to pay up to $100,000 for Ameren to relocate poles.
Both votes were 6-0. Board member Doreen Berezowski did not attend the meeting.
“I am incredibly excited to officially begin this project,” Ruess said. “This facility represents an investment in our students, not just in athletics, but in school pride, student engagement and opportunities that extend beyond the classroom.
“With the classroom expansion project now nearing completion, the district is ready to move forward with the gym and indoor practice facility as originally approved by the community.”
Brockmiller Construction of Farmington is the construction manager at risk (CMaR) for the project that includes a 2,100-seat fieldhouse, estimated to be a 40,000- to 42,000-square-foot building.
In a CMaR set up, the client, contractor and architect work as a team in collaborating on the project, Ruess said. The architect for the project is Archimages of Kirkwood.
Matt Franklin, project manager from Brockmiller Construction, said 20 bids were considered for the four site development areas.
“We had 40 contractors that we solicited for this bid package,” he said. “This bid package consisted of four different scopes of work within the bid package – that was site work, site utilities, electrical and then a retaining wall.”
The bids awarded – all low bids – at the meeting were:
■ Site work-grounds, which went to JH Berra Construction of St. Louis at $1,769,070;
■ Site utilities, which went to Kelpe Contracting Inc. of Wildwood at $1,562,614;
■ Site electrical work, which went to BT Electric of Bloomsdale at $276,000;
■ Retaining wall construction, which went to Rosch Company of Chesterfield at $60,720.
Those four figures total $3,668,404. The rest of the $3.99 million is for architect and contractor fees, as well as other incidental costs, Ruess said.
“It’s a site development package,” Ruess said. “It’s package 1. We’re going to bid (the overall project) out in packages, and package 1 is the site development. These will be the first steps on the project. They need to be done before any building.”
Ruess cautioned that the overall price of the project is an estimate.
“It’s about $30 million,” she said. “We don’t have a guaranteed maximum price yet because all of the packages haven’t been out yet.”
Ruess said people should not expect the gym-fieldhouse to be ready for use for quite a while.
“I’m hoping for it to be finished by fall of '28,” she said. “But, we’re way too early. We don’t have a construction timeline yet.”