North Penn Board Votes Ahead High School Contract RFPs

Dan Sokil | The Reporter•

A set of requests for proposals could be approved this month that will add pieces to the puzzle of renovating North Penn High School.

The district’s facilities and operations committee voted ahead three requests, clearing the way for action by the full school board this month.

"The first are permission to advertise for RFPs for certain services that we will need, in the design effort of the high school renovations,” said Director of Facilities and Operations Tom Schneider.

Renovations to the high school have been discussed and debated extensively over the past year-plus, as district administrators and school board members made the case to the public for a major renovation of the high school, and held a vote in mid-January on funding an expansion to add ninth grade there.

After that referendum was voted down on Jan. 16, both staff and board switched gears, to refining plans for a smaller-scale renovation that would largely maintain the existing building footprint and campus configuration.

During the facilities and ops committee meeting on Feb. 26, Schneider gave an update, presenting three requests for proposals for the committee to vote ahead to the full board.

The first RFP seeks a company to conduct scanning and surveying above the ceilings of the current buildings, parts of which date back to the early 1970s.

A second RFP would similarly seek bids from firms to do subsurface imaging, "which is necessary to find all of the utilities around the building, so that we don’t disturb any of the public utilities in the area,” he said.

"This is a necessary item, because there is some legislation through the PUC that, if public utilities are damaged, it will be the responsibility of the owner to take care of it,” he said.

The third RFP would seek a firm to conduct geotechnical investigation of the campus, which Schneider said will measure soil infiltration and soil bearing capacity throughout the high school campus. Committee chairwoman Cathy McMurtrie asked if that contract would include any environmental analysis, and Schneider said it would not.

All three RFPs were voted ahead by the committee, and could be approved by the full school board at its March action meeting. The administrator then gave an update on the ongoing high school design efforts, including a vote by Towamencin’s supervisors to grant a zoning change for the high school complex.

"As far as the ongoing activities, with the transportation relocation, we are still working with a broker who is actively searching for a transportation location. There is one possible property” that is currently "being investigated” by that broker and the district, Schneider said.

"There have been discussions with the owner regarding leasing or purchasing the property, and the needed renovations to house transportation. So discussions are ongoing, and I’m sure there may be some information forthcoming in the near future,” he said.

McMurtrie asked what the board and public would see and hear once a transportation site is finalized, and Schneider and district CFO Steve Skrocki said final steps, including requests from staff for public votes from the board, could happen quickly once an agreement is reached.

"I think a lot is going to happen in the next month. We have a lot of things going on right now, that once they start coming together, we can discuss them in more detail publicly. But there is a lot of work happening behind the scenes right now,” he said.

One public comment was fielded about the renovations, from resident Jason Lanier, who asked if staff have "an accounting somewhere” of the value of all of the assets owned by the district, including school buildings and properties. Skrocki answered that the district’s insurance carrier requires such a value be calculated annually, and said afterward the total district replacement cost value for insurance purposes is $673,948,966, with talks about the various properties owned by the district slated for discussion at the board’s March 12 finance committee meeting.

North Penn’s school board finance committee next meets at 6 p.m. on March 12 and 19, the full board next meets at 7 p.m. on March 21, and the facilities and operations committee next meets at 7 p.m. on March 25. For more information visit www.NPenn.org.

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