Horry County Schools pushes back new school design submission date by one week

Architecture and construction firms now have an extra week to submit their designs for five new area schools to Horry County Schools.

The district issued an addendum to its Request for Proposals – which allows four previously selected firms to submit designs for five new school facilities – on Thursday. The addendum moved the deadline from Aug. 27 to Sept. 3 after the Board of Education approved a motion allowing design firms to change some of the district’s conceptual plans to include education specifications.

“The district wanted to give design-build firms more time to sort out the process, especially with the addendums giving the firms more flexibility,” said Joe DeFeo, board chairman.

Earlier this month, 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 currently clash with specifications, DeFeo said. Some classrooms, for instance, are not currently designed with windows. The schools’ gymnasiums are 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 have 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 can only change those two design specifications.

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

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

The submission deadline should not affect the schools’ expected delivery date of August 2017, DeFeo said.

“It’s more about when the contract will be awarded that affects the delivery date,” he said.

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.

Proposals must be received and stamped by 3:30 p.m. Sept. 3 at the district office, 335 Four Mile Rd., Conway.

This story was originally published August 25, 2015 at 12:58 PM with the headline "Horry County Schools pushes back new school design submission date by one week."