Hollister School District trustees approved $112,500 in architect contracts at their regularly scheduled meeting last week – the first step in planning widespread facility improvements.
While trustees originally planned to award a contract to just one firm, they later split the duties into two projects and hired separate firms with more specific areas of expertise.
Trustees approved the San Jose-based IBI Group Architecture Planning to draft a prioritized list of projects for the $28.5 million general obligation facilities bond headed to the November 2014 ballot. They also approved the Monterey-based HGHB Architects and Planners firm to look into using Proposition 39 money, which is reserved for energy conservation projects, to improve the district’s oldest school site: R.O. Hardin Elementary School.
“When we got all done, we would have been quite content to have arrived at one but we felt so strongly that both were such highly qualified architects,” said Superintendent Gary McIntire. “So we were trying to choose one and we couldn’t.”
In April, district staff members started the process to hire an architect by advertising a request for qualifications, the first step in starting a bidding process for a district project. They received 13 responses. A committee including a school board trustee, district staff and a member of the public interviewed the top six candidates. From those firms, they picked their top two and presented contracts to the school board for approval.
The plan had been to hire only one firm, but the selection committee was so impressed with HGHB Architects and Planners’ analysis of R.O. Hardin that they decided to award a separate contract for the work there, said McIntire.
“We’re very pleased to be working with your district and particularly pleased to be working with R.O. Hardin,” said Kenneth Scates, principal of HGHB Architects and Planners, when he addressed the full board of trustees at the meeting last Tuesday.
Trustees awarded $56,500 to HGHB Architects and Planners and $56,000 to IBI Group Architecture Planning. The cost of the architectural firms will come from developer fees, which the district can levy against residential, commercial and industrial developments for the purpose of funding construction or reconstruction of school facilities.
“We’re quite excited,” said McIntire. “We really like both of these architectural firms quite a bit. They’re both really well qualified.”
