The Wright City R-II School Board last week approved a change order increasing costs for an expansion at East Elementary. 

The R-II board unanimously approved change orders to change the type of brick for the expansion, and to remove existing concrete at the footings. The total cost for the two changes is over $15,000. 

The change in brick will cost the district over $3,800. The change is necessary because the originally specified brick was on back order for a few months, according to Bond Architects architectural associate Breanna Kolk. The change in brick will help the district avoid a delay in construction.

“The brick that we had originally specified matched the existing building,” Kolk said. “We went with that brick and it turns out it’s back-ordered. The second brick matches also. It’s a different product. It is a little more expensive. Any change is going to cost money, so this really is not much compared to the rest of the project.”

Kolk said approving the change order will cost the district less money than waiting on the originally specified brick to become available. 

The district also approved about $11,500 in cost to remove existing concrete around footings at the building. The concrete needs to be removed because it’s in the way of connecting the expansion wing to the school’s existing foundation. 

“When the contractors were excavating along the existing building, they discovered that the previous construction, it looks like they went in and backfilled with concrete instead of soil,” Kolk said. “So this really is just to remove that so they can continue with work on the new addition.”

Kolk said the foundations were poured for the expansion, and were setting in last week. Contractors were planning to build the masonry walls this week.

The Wright City R-II School District in November awarded a bid of $1.99 million to Aspire Construction Services for the East Elementary addition. 

Progress continues at high school

Wright Construction senior project manager and Director of Operations Bobby Christopher said that company is making progress at the Roelker Road site for the district’s new high school. They anticipate starting site utilities shortly. They will start prepping the site for concrete soon. Vertical construction of the building is set to take place starting in May, Christopher said. 

Christopher noted Wright Construction has completed more work in K-12 construction than anyone else in the area. They recently constructed North Point High School and North Point Middle School, with change order rates of 0.89% for the high school and 1.1% for the middle school. 

“Relatively speaking, very low,” Christopher said. “Industry standard is about 3-5%. We strive to be good stewards of your money, the public’s money and put it to the best use possible. There will be change orders. We’ll try to minimize that. We don’t want them as much as you don’t want them, but naturally, it’s part of the industry.” 

The school board voted in November to award a bid for the high school construction, with the addition of two alternate bids for athletic fields, to Wright Construction. The base bid and two alternates totaled just over $55 million. 

The total estimated cost for district construction projects, after awarding the bids and other associated fees, was over $66.4 million.