The Goodhue School District has worked on a number of construction project details since the voters approved the building project on November 6.

The building project oversight committee consists of parents and community members with knowledge in the area of construction along with school board members and administrators. This committee made a recommendation to the school board to hire ICS as the owner’s representative for the school district, and the school board approved a contract with ICS at the December board meeting. ICS will help ensure that the project stays within the design scope and budget. ICS has worked with a number of school districts to ensure that building projects are completed in a successful manner. At this point, ICS has been working with the district on developing a project budget.

At the January school board meeting, a contract was approved with LSE Architects to handle all design aspects of the project. Over the next several weeks, design meetings will be held with the district’s facility design committee, which consists of students, parents, community members, staff, school board members, and administrators. School district staff members will also play an important role in the design process as a number of user group meetings will be scheduled during the design process. LSE has been working on design elements, including updating all current drawings of the school building. A timeline has not been developed at this time, but it may be possible that the bidding process on the project will begin in late summer or early fall.

At the January 28 school board meeting, the sale of construction bonds for the project was approved. Springsted has worked with the district on securing financing for the project, and in December, they estimated that the true interest cost for the bonds would be at 3.71%. Once the bond sale was finalized, the lowest bid yielded a true interest cost of 3.215%, which is 0.5% lower than initially estimated. This equates to interest savings for school district taxpayers of over $1.5 million during the life of the bonds.

The school district will provide updates over the course of the project. If anyone has questions, they may contact Superintendent Evan Gough.

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