St. Charles School Board moving ahead with boiler replacement, replastering North High School’s pool

The St. Charles District 303 School Board is moving ahead with the replacement of several boilers and replastering the pool at St. Charles North High School.

Boilers need to be replaced at Wredling Middle School, St. Charles East High School and St. Charles North High School. Barr Mechanical Sales submitted the low boiler equipment bid and Bornquist, Inc. submitted the low pump equipment bid.

“Each one of the bidders came in low on a different area of the project,” Justin Attaway, the district’s assistant superintendent for business services, told board members at the Business Services Committee meeting March 23. “So we’re actually suggesting splitting that bid.”

The district’s administration recommended Barr Mechanical Sales be awarded the boiler equipment bid in the amount of $969,660 and Bornquist, Inc. be awarded the pump equipment bid in the amount of $77,000.

“This bid recommendation is only for the equipment portion of the boiler replacement,” Attaway said. “We’re going to be going out to bid for the actual installation of the boilers, likely within the next few weeks. That recommendation will come back at a future meeting.”

At the meeting, board members recommended approval of the bids along with a $318,000 bid to replace the plaster in the pool at St. Charles North High School. They are set to approve all the bids at their next regular board meeting.

Pool Tech’s base bid of $255,000 is for the replastering of the damaged areas in the pool. Two alternates were solicited as part of the bid.

“Alternate 1 was for full plaster removal and replacement of the entire pool and alternate 2 was for an acid wash and regrout of all the tile. The numbers came in such that it is advantageous to accept the base bid and both alternates,” Attaway said.

Alternate 1 adds $46,000 to the bid and Alternate 2 adds $17,000 to the bid.

Board President Heidi Fairgrieve asked about the timeline for the work and if it would cause any disruptions.

“The timeline that was included in the bid accommodated what North needed to do in that pool over the summer,” Attaway said. “And what isn’t held at North, we may just need to relocate to East. But we shouldn’t be cutting programming because of this.”