Committee narrows down Columbia Falls Elementary school projects to two options: $29 million and $34 million

The School District Six Long Range Planning Committee narrowed its construction and renovation possibilities for the Ruder and Glacier Gateway elementary schools down to two Tuesday.

L’Heureux Page Werner Architecture presented the committee with nine options to choose from, many of which would not address the many immediate needs of the two schools, which include security issues, overcrowding, ventilation problems and more. After more than an hour of presentation and discussion, the committee narrowed the selections down to two, with a cost of between $29 million and $34 million.

While the committee dismissed an option in November that would have had the district building two completely new schools for $42 million, it was still concerned about how taxpayers will react to the project.

“We know there are a lot of people in this community who are on fixed incomes and we have to be very respectful of that. At the same time, the future of the community is based on the education we are able to provide for our kids. I feel that, if we can show the need, people will be supportive of this,” Superintendent Steve Bradshaw said. “From my perspective, there is no sense in doing something that doesn’t get the job done and then 10 to 15 years from now, we are back asking the taxpayers for money to fix what we didn’t fix the first time”

The changes to Ruder Elementary would be the same in both scenarios and was a mesh of two of the options presented to the committee Tuesday. For a cost of around $10 million, $756,000 would go towards remodeling the existing school, $834,000 would be spent to address mechanical, electrical, plumbing and building code compliance, $2 million to $3.2 million in “soft costs,” which include permits, architectural and engineering costs, furniture and fixtures and the costs of setting up the bonds; and between $4.41 million and $8.76 million would be spent on new construction of between 18,766 and 43,085 square feet of new space.

The much older Glacier Gateway school would need much more extensive work done, with the two options ranging between $19 million and $24 million.

The less expensive of the two options, at $19 million, would remodel and reuse only the north portion of the school and one gym while adding nearly 16,000 square feet of new construction to the west of that section. The cost breakdown provided indicated $4.75 million in soft costs, $2.4 million to address mechanical, electrical, plumbing and building code compliance, $2 million in remodeling costs and $9.85 million for new construction.

The $24 million option would involve demolishing the existing school and building a new 71,000 square foot facility capable of holding 644 students. Of that cost, $2 million would go towards demolition and hazardous material removal.

What would be the impact on local taxpayers? The current junior high bond has taxpayers paying $80.97 per year on a home assessed for $200,000. If passed by the voters, the $29 million dollar option would raise that amount to $209.10, or an increase of $128.13 per year. The $34 million option would cost a home assessed for $200,000 about $237.36 per year, or an increase of $156.39.

One way to bring those costs down would be to sell the Canyon Elementary School in Hungry Horse, which is currently being used partially by the county as a healthcare facility. Bradshaw says the school has looked into the possibility of reopening the facility, but said that it would not meet the district’s needs.

“We still don’t believe we have enough kids there to make opening that school viable. If we opened it now, we would be in the red,” he said.

Bradshaw added that the district is doing a survey of the area to determine how many kids would use the school if it were to be reopened.

The Columbia Falls Junior High was built with the passage of a $12 million bond issue in 2000 and will come off the books at the end of this year. L’Heureux estimated that, with the rising cost of construction and inflation, that building would easily cost twice that amount or more if it were built today.

The public will have its first chance to voice its opinion next month as the committee will host a community meeting at the Columbia Falls Junior High cafeteria Feb. 13 at 6 p.m.