Vacaville school board to consider changes to McClellan Street remodel

Vacaville Unified School District’s improvement project for the longtime campus at 100 McClellan St. is moving along, but unforeseen circumstances during the project’s construction have resulted in a request to amend the funding amount.

The school board will consider a contract amendment to increase unforeseen conditions allowance and supplement the owner-requested changes allowance at Thursday’s meeting.

At its May 13 meeting, the board approved a contract with F&H Construction out of Lodi for improvements to the Buckingham Collegiate Charter Academy campus to the tune of $12.6 million, approximately $1.45 million below the construction cost budget. Additional roofing work was removed before the project went out to bid because it would have taken VUSD over its budget on the day of the bid, per a staff report by Daniel Banowetz, VUSD’s chief facilities, maintenance and operations officer.

The board subsequently approved a $626,601 change order adding the roof replacement into the overall scope of the project at its May 27 meeting. However, Banowetz wrote that construction crews experienced several unforeseen conditions such as the discovery of the original 19th century school building foundations and basement, cement pads from previous buildings under the parking lot and unsuitable soils. All of these ended up using up the approved unforeseen allowances.

“Not only were these discoveries very expensive to resolve, it added a lot of extra time that was not anticipated to the schedule,” Banowetz wrote.

As a result, the work for the initial change order was suspended. The district is now putting forth $519,850 from the unallocated budget to compensate the contractor for additional work. The board is being asked to approve this amendment, allowing for the construction costs to be $443,665 under the original construction budget.

The campus at 100 McClellan St. became the site of Buckingham last year following its move from Bella Vista Road. Prior to that, it was the site of Country High School and served as the home of Ulatis Elementary School before its closure in 2003. Vacaville High School also had a building on the site for many decades until moving to its present campus in 1952.

In other business, the board will hold its third public hearing on redrawing trustee area boundary maps and will also consider the Measure A audit and a resolution recognizing February as Black History Month.

The board will meet at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the Educational Services Center, 401 Nut Tree Road. The meeting can also be viewed online at Youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA4TLF5sgWi04EUU5MmH0Ip66HNJU2ZZ, and remote attendees can also participate through Zoom at Vacavilleusd.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN__cUPpQxzQgCU01Ku31Msow.