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Work progresses on building new schools in Beaufort County

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The Beaufort County Board of Education is advancing with planning a new auditorium in Beaufort and an elementary school and two early learning centers in the Bluffton area.

The board last week gave the district approval to negotiate a contract with Usry Wolfe Associates in Myrtle Beach to design an auditorium on Beaufort High School grounds for about $9.7 million for the district's Beaufort-area schools. Usry Wolfe has been involved in several school projects in the Myrtle Beach area, including theaters, said John Williams, district spokesman. The auditorium is projected to be completed by February 2010.

All of the contracts are related to projects approved in a $162.7 million bond referendum last month.

The board also awarded H.G. Reynolds of Aiken for pre-construction work on the district's elementary school to be built on the Jones Tract, a parcel the district owns in Bluffton. The contract is for $90,000 in addition to 7 percent of the construction cost.

District officials and school board members have occasionally griped about architects' tendencies to pad projects with expensive features such as unnecessary metals or curved walls -- architectural niceties that serve a school's aesthetics, not its function.

H.G. Reynolds will work with the school's architects to ensure that each design decision best serves the school's bottom line and its $22.4 million budget, Williams said. The school design will be one of the first under the district's new elementary school prototype designed by Jumper Carter Sease Architects in

Columbia.

"Essentially, it's a short-term and a long-term cost savings," Williams said.

Thompson Turner Construction of Sumter will be paid $35,000 to provide pre-construction services for two early learning centers at M.C. Riley and Bluffton elementary schools in addition to

5 percent of the construction cost. The centers are projected to cost about $10.1 million each.

Turner Construction's role will be similar to that of H.G. Reynolds. The school's budget is $25.5 million and is projected to open in 2012. Liollio Architecture in Charleston is designing the learning center prototype to be used by the district.

Both contracts will be paid for with referendum money, according to district documents.

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