Dirt Work Bids Come In Under Budget

FARMINGTON — Bids for the first phase for a new Farmington High basketball arena and fine arts center came in under the engineer’s estimate by almost half a million dollars.

“It looks to me like we’re on a good road for the project,” Mark Haguewood with Hight-Jackson Associates said at the bid opening on Aug. 15.

The Farmington School Board in a special meeting last week accepted Haguewood’s recom- mendation to approve a low bid of $565,556 from Dean Crowder Construction Co., of Bentonville, for site grading and storm drainage. The bids ranged from the low proposal to a high bid of $1.8 million from Sweetser Construction. Four of the bids came in under the engineer’s estimated cost of just over $1 million.

Superintendent Bryan Law said he was glad to see the bids come in lower than expected.

“We’ve been talking about this project for a long time,” Law said. “It’s exciting to see it happen.”

Haguewood said work should start on the first phase by Sept. 1. The contract calls for the dirt work and storm drainage to be completed in 90 days.

Dean Crowder Construction has completed several projects for Hight- Jackson and Haguewood said the firm “has been around for many years and always does quality work.”

In the meantime, Haguewood said his firm is waiting on several approvals before it can advertise for bids to construct the gym and fine arts center. Once these approvals are received, he said a request for bids would go out. He said he hoped this would happen in early September.

The school district is building a new basketball arena and fine arts center with a combined square footage of 74,800 square feet for an estimated cost of $12 million. The arena will seat 600 people and the basketball gym will have about 1,700 seats. The facilities will be built on school property on South Hunter Street, next to Farmington United Methodist Church.

The construction schedule calls for the project to be finished by January 2015.