Project price just over $5m
The guaranteed maximum price (GMP) for additions of classrooms and bathrooms at Pierce County Middle School and Patterson Elementary is $5,065,193.83.
Zach Daniel, project manager with R.H. Tyson Construction of Blackshear, presented the GMP to the school board at their work session Thursday (June 4). The board approved the GMP at the work session.
R.H. Tyson Construction of Blackshear is the construction manager for the project.
“Our prinicipals say we need it and it is for our kids, so I say let’s do it,” said First District board member Kirby Malone.
Superintendent Dara Bennett said in addition to those two factors, the school system also can afford to build it.
Funding will come from the Education Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (ESPLOST).
Malone also stressed in light of the recent substantial increase in tax assessments that he wanted the public to know the school board has been good stewards of public monies.
“We have the money to build these additions,” he said. “We are not going to raise your taxes to do it. We don’t have anything to do with reassessments of property values.”
Second district board member Perry Tison said the additions to be built at the middle school were needed as far back as when he was principal at PCMS. Tison retired as principal at Pierce Middle in 2020.
Daniel said R.H. Tyson Construction is ready to begin work and construction activity at both sites should begin in a couple of weeks now that the BOE has given approval to the projects.
Plans call for the construction of four new classrooms and bathrooms at Patterson Elementary. A conference room and storage space will also be included. The new addition will be built at the rear of the campus and will take up some of the parking there.
The work will include erosion control, grading for a new building pad and drainage modifications, site utility modifications, new asphalt paving, concrete sidewalks, landscaping (sod) and associated demolition.
The addition will eliminate the use of mobile units at the school and put all students inside the main building. It will also provide additional space for the school’s special education students.
It will be built over eight parking spaces in the side parking lot, but school officials have said alternate parking is available on campus.
Daniel gave a GMP of $2,317,380.69 for the Patterson project. He estimates work will be completed in February, 2027.
New construction at the middle school will include three new classrooms and three sets of male and female bathrooms that will be added at the end of the sixth, seventh and eighth grade wings. Storage space will also be included.
The work will also include erosion control, grading for new building pads and minor site utility modifications.
Daniel gave a GMP of $2,747,803.74 for the middle school project. He estimates work will be completed in March, 2027.
Bennett said if all goes well and there are no weather delays, both projects should be complete by spring break of the 2026-27 school year.
