District names front runners for possible building project

Middletown City Schools took another step toward updating its secondary school buildings by making a recommendation for hiring an architect firm and construction manager.

A school board subcommittee made a preliminary recommendation Monday to hire the architectural firm of Fanning Howey and the construction management firm of Quandel Construction to build a new middle school and renovate the existing high school.

The district is considering a bond issue on the May ballot to build a new middle school. Initial cost estimates were $29.5 million, which included demolition of the current middle school building on Girard Avenue and the building of a new school. The district had hoped to receive assistance from the Ohio School Facilities Commission, but that state money may not be offered for another two to three years.

“We interviewed seven firms — three architectural companies and four construction management firms — and at the end of the day, we decided on these two companies,” Middletown City Schools business manager George Long said. “Nine companies had initially expressed interest in helping the district move ahead with our planning process.”

The subcommittee will give its final recommendation to the school board Dec. 3, Long said. Treasurer Kelley Thorpe, Long and the school district’s attorneys will then begin negotiating for the two companies’ services.

“A lot of decisions will need to be made in the upcoming months,” said Stephen Wilczynski, the executive director at Fanning Howey. “In December and January, we will be working with the school district to help formulate the scope of what the plan may be for a potential May bond issue.”

Fanning Howey has offices in Celina and Dublin, Ohio. The Quandel Construction Group has three Mid-Atlantic region offices in Pennsylvania, with its Midwest regional offices in Columbus and Cincinnati.

The subcommittee was made up of school board members Greg Tyus and Katie McNeil, Long, school superintendent Greg Rasmussen and Thorpe. Based on submitted material, the group evaluated and interviewed the companies for more than seven hours Monday.

“Quandel has done work for this district before. They’re the construction management firm that handled the construction of all the new elementary schools,” Long said. “Fanning Howey is a new architecture firm from a design perspective, but they are the firm that helped us with the consensus building planning process last Spring.”

McNeil says Quandel’s development of the elementary schools has already paid off in terms of the district’s all-day kindergarten program.

“We had good design in the elementary buildings that gave us flexibility in those classrooms,” McNeil said. “It’s wonderful for the new elementary schools to have the flexibility and space that would enable us to have all-day kindergarten. Some districts aren’t able to afford that opportunity, and so, thanks to the builders’ foresight into what was needed in those schools, we’re very fortunate to have that and to be able to offer it.”

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