Costs deepen as scope of pool repairs widens

Once a priority, Stranahan awaits delayed maintenance

Renovating the Stranahan High swimming pool is expected to cost about $1.5 million — almost six times more than projected when crews first set out to make repairs.

Staff said the project’s scope had to be expanded to include repairing or replacing the deteriorating pool pump house. They said the new price tag also reflected about 10 percent in possible unexpected costs.

The pool’s problems stem from years of maintenance put off because of scarce funding, said Superintendent Robert Runcie.

“We’ve got deferred maintenance in this district that runs into the billions,” he said.

On Tuesday, the Broward school board will vote whether to approve the construction contract and begin the project, which is budgeted for around $1.47 million.

Whenthe pool was first closed in 2014, staff proposed to fix it for about $250,000 and have it done by November of 2015. But crews discovered the damage was worse that they’d thought and said in February of 2016 that they needed to enlist contractors to do the job. They quoted a $583,400 price tag at that point and said

they expected to be finished by that June.

Runcie said staff determined the pool had much greater needs since then — requiring far more than four months to meet.

“The good news is that we’re not just doing some patching work on a pool. We’re doing a complete renovation and restoration of a pool,” he said, later adding, “There has been no gap in focus in getting this done.”

The pool is among the many repairs expected at the 65-year-old Fort Lauderdale school, which has rotting walkways and a collapsing roof. There are no sprinklers or heat and many students eat lunch under a tent that leaks when it rains.

The community was promised repairs would be made in 2012, but that never happened. Instead, Stranahan became a poster child for selling voters on an $800 million school bond, which was approved by voters in November 2014.

The school was placed among those at the head of the line for renovations, with $18 million of work needed.

Broward school officials promised at the time that priority projects, such as Stranahan, would begin in the summer of 2015.

But then the district made numerous errors in estimating the needs of each school. It changed its methods of advertising for contractors and selecting them. Turmoil in the purchasing department meant there was nobody to put construction work out for bid. And a failure to follow Florida’s open government Sunshine Law forced the district to repeat work.

Now the district plans to implement the primary renovations at Stranahan — the sprinklers, the roof, the heating, ventilation and air conditioning system— at the beginning of next year.

Runcie said the district has made progress in other areas at Stranahan. For example, crews finished a new running track and gymnasium floor. And the district has delivered 700 new computers and about $300,000 in musical equipment to the school, he said.

Joshauwa Brown, a 2001 Stranahan alumnus, said he’s ready to put on a construction hat and grab a shovel himself.

“I’m embarrassed,” he said. “It’s hard to be proud to be an alum. It still looks the sameway it looked in 2001.”