NORTH ROYALTON, Ohio — The North Royalton school board has hired a Cleveland construction firm to remodel the kitchen at North Royalton Middle School.
The district will pay Sona Construction LLC no more than $1.1 million for the job, under a resolution the board approved in February.
The project was estimated at $1.3 million.
Sona submitted the lowest of five bids for the remodeling.
The number of bidders impressed school board member Culin Culbertson, who used to work for Summit Construction Co. in Akron.
Culbertson said he knows three of the contractors that bid on the kitchen remodeling. He said they like working with North Royalton Schools.
“There are some projects that have come up that get one bid, two bids,” Culbertson said at the Feb. 13 board meeting.
“That’s because (some) districts have a reputation of being difficult to work with, which in this environment scares away bidders.
“The fact that there were multiple bids on this contract is huge,” Culbertson said. “Kudos to the district.”
Culbertson said he also liked that the five bids were relatively low, all coming well below the $1.3 million estimate.
That happened probably because there were several bidders, all of whom wanted to work with North Royalton Schools.
“It ($1.1 million) seems like a lot, but it’s not,” Culbertson said.
Although the resolution approved by the board included a not-to-exceed amount of $1.1 million, Sona’s actual bid was slightly more than $1 million.
The four other bids exceeded Sona’s offer by $627 (Lawler Construction in Cleveland), $8,000 (Town Center Construction in Northfield), $11,900 (Dunlop & Johnston Inc. in Valley City) and $75,812 (Millstone Management Group in Chesterland).
Earlier this year, schools Superintendent Michael Laub told cleveland.com that the kitchen renovation is needed to replace aging equipment, most of which is original to the middle school building.
Among the items slated for replacement are counters, tabletops, sinks, shelves, cabinets and heated cabinets, ovens, refrigeration and electrical systems, coolers, wall paneling, faucets, pipes, valves, gauges, hoses, soap and towel dispensers, sneeze guards and fire suppression systems.
As the district replaces equipment, it will also change the flow in the cafeteria so that it’s more open, like at North Royalton High School.
This will cut down on the length of the lines, Laub said.
Laub said money for the project will not come from the district’s general fund, which pays for day-to-day operations, but from the Food Service Fund.
Construction is scheduled to begin toward the end of this school year and finish before the start of the 2025-2026 academic year in August.
from the Sun Star Courier.