Nine companies respond to Horry County Schools’ call for architects

Nine parties responded to Horry County Schools’ newest request for qualifications, including a company that presented its energy-efficient school design plans to the Board of Education last year.

Joe DeFeo, board chairman, said he expected between seven and 11 companies to submit qualifications for the project, but there’s never a sure way to guess the amount of responders for every RFQ.

“There really is no way of knowing exactly because there’s a lot of factors that goes in to how many respond, including how busy they are with other projects,” DeFeo said. “But nine is a good amount of people.”

School district officials established a committee to short-list architectural and construction firms bidding to build five new schools, a process DeFeo hopes will only take about 30 days. The committee includes five district staff members and five board members.

The district has budgeted $161.7 million to build five new schools. The total cost of the project – including renovations or additions to two schools – is $451.6 million. The board decided to use a design-build project delivery system for its five new schools, which means a single firm performs both design and construction of each project.

“There’s enough respondents for the committee to get a good feel of the process, DeFeo said. “This is all in the selection committee’s hands now.”

Once a short list is decided, those companies can submit requests for proposals. DeFeo hopes all five new schools will be open by August 2017.

“I’m still feeling good about it,” he said.

The companies on the list:

• ▪ Thompson Turner Construction – Sumter, S.C.
• ▪ First Floor Energy Positive – Raleigh, N.C.
• ▪ The Whiting-Turner Contracting Company/ Stevens & Wilkinson, S.C. – Columbia, S.C.
• ▪ H.G. Reynolds Company, Inc. – Aiken, S.C.
• ▪ Ajax Building Corporation Southeast – Durham, N.C.
• ▪ W.M. Jordan Company, Inc. – Wilmington, N.C.
• ▪ Edifice, Inc. – Charlotte, S.C.
• ▪ China Construction America, Inc. – Columbia, S.C.
• ▪ M.B. Kahn Construction Co. Inc. – Myrtle Beach, S.C.

The district released the RFQ a second time in February after tossing out original conceptual design plans for the new schools in November.

The school board cited a need to request and review energy-positive designs for new schools, but kept its earlier plans for remodels and additions to two other schools.

Unlike last year’s request, the current RFQ was written by district staff and board members in conjunction with Childs and Halligan, a law firm out of Columbia that’s partnered with the district before for other legal reasons. Bick Halligan, a lawyer with the firm, said it isn’t uncommon for school districts to seek the help of lawyers while writing large-scale contracts.

“The [RFQ] is establishing a large contractual relationship over a period of time, and that’s the sort of thing lawyers are involved in,” Halligan said.

This story was originally published April 16, 2015 at 9:01 PM with the headline "Nine companies respond to Horry County Schools’ call for architects."