San Benito High School won’t break ground on a gym and wrestling building before winter break, as school officials originally hoped, after the district architect reviewed the plans and found them further behind than expected with an additional $1 million in costs.
“One of the comments here – I mean, I could make a few – but the second from the bottom: ‘Project should break ground in 2015,’ ” said Trustee Ray Rodriguez, as he paused and raised his eyebrows. “’It should be complete in 2015.’ ”
The newly hired district architect, AEDIS, who came on board in September, determined the building plans were not as far along as originally expected and discovered about $1 million in additional costs, including adding janitor closets, restrooms and team rooms that weren’t in the original plans.
“It’s probably around a million dollars for details left out the original plan,” said Joe Vela, the AEDIS associate principal who presented at the meeting and noted he was going out on a limb to give this estimate without reviewing the actual numbers.
“We went through the plans and there were a lot of holes in them,” he said.
Muro asked Roseanne Lascano, the director of finance and operations, how much had been allocated to cover the cost of the original project, and Trustee Steve DeLay volunteered the number was about $2.5 million. Trustees guessed the total project cost would now be closer to $4 million.
