Horry County approves final step to five new schools

One architecture and construction firm has been selected to build all five new Horry County School District schools.

First Floor Energy Positive, based in Raleigh, N.C., scored the highest for all schools on the district’s Request for Proposals committee criteria, according to Ken Childs, district attorney. The company hopes to start construction in the next few weeks, depending on contract negotiations.

John Poston, district 8 representative, voted against the motion. He said he couldn’t give details about why he dissented because his reasons are based on discussions the board had in executive session.

A Request for Proposals committee met several times over the last three months deciding which architecture firms can build the new schools. In June, four firms were selected to submit bids for at least two of the new school projects.

The full board approved the committee’s selection at their regular meeting Monday.

Robbie Ferris, CEO of First Floor, presented his previous high-performance, energy-efficient school designs to the board last year. Soon after, the board threw out previously-approved conceptual design plans. The board stated they needed time to request and review energy-efficient designs before approving any new construction projects.

“We’re very excited,” Ferris said Monday. “We’re ready to move, and we’re ready to get this done,”

The board, district and First Floor officials will now move into negotiating a contract to build the new schools. The architecture company may not build all five new schools, depending on how negotiations turn out. But all the new schools will be built simultaneously and by August 2017, Ferris said.

“Hopefully we’ll be moving dirt within the next few months,” he said.

Joe DeFeo, board chairman, said First Floor’s experience with energy-positive designs set them apart from the other two firms that submitted bids. Since all the bids were judged on a point-system – based on criteria from the selection committee – First Floor was simply the best choice for the district, he said.

The addition of five board members on the selection committee, along with five district personnel, was a good representation, DeFeo added.

“They’ve all been in touch with this issue for a lot longer than seven months,” DeFeo said. “So I think it’s been plenty of time for us to make this decision.”

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.

The district has budgeted $167.3 million to build five new schools, according to John Gardner, chief financial officer. The district increased the funding for the new St. James area school by about $6,000 earlier this year.

In August, the board agreed to allow design-build firms to change two specific parts of the conceptual design – created by a steering committee last year – to meet educational specifications also created by the committee.

Certain parts of the plan clashed with specifications, DeFeo said. Some classrooms, for instance, were not currently designed with windows. The schools’ gymnasiums were also located down several hallways away from the main lobby, which would cause visitors to have to walk through much of the school to attend special events.

Architects had the option to change the design around to fit two educational specifications – getting windows in all classrooms and creating better access to the gym – without being penalized. Firms could only change those two design specifications.

“There is no prototype for new buildings like this,” DeFeo said last month. “The designers should go through the process to fix those problems before we build.”

The firms did not have points taken away from their evaluations if they choose to change gym access or classroom window availability in their designs.

This story was originally published October 12, 2015 at 9:59 PM with the headline "Horry County approves final step to five new schools."