uh-oh... school costs surprise

**VHSLhelper** · July 9th, 2011, 05:27 PM

Montgomery County's SB just approved a contract for building a new Blacksburg High, a new Auburn High, and renovations to make AHS the new AMS, and their numbers don't look like what Wise Co. is tossing around.

Branch & Associates says the 600 student, 175,000 sq. ft. Auburn High BUILDING will cost $26.1 Mil.
Add in their other stuff and it comes to $35.6 Mil.
Add in, oh, a quarter of the $14 Mil. "furnishings" cost, or $3.5 Mil., and Auburn's ACTUAL cost is $39 Mil.
(and this is less than $44.6 Mil. that had been proposed before BHS' gym roof collapsed.)

Wise is saying a 750-student HS for $25 Mil... right?
How will they do it?

Montgomery County school board OKs construction for 3 new schools - Roanoke.com

**R13** · July 9th, 2011, 05:43 PM

It's really hard to compare two projects like that when just the cost of land alone is vastly different in two different areas. With fluctuating interests rates on loans, the PPEA process and construction costs that go up and down constantly, not hard to see how it could be that and much more. They're also willing to raise taxes to cover the costs too and the part about them getting an extended warranty too. And with the way they talked, there was no surprise at all, they actually said it was a good deal. Not sure how this can be compared to our situation or makes the number not work?

**VHSLhelper** · July 10th, 2011, 10:33 AM

I don't think the cost of land has anything to do with the contractor's bid... that should be done seperately, by the county.
(Which wouldn't seem to be that much for Auburn, since it's going to be built at the current campus.)
And I didn't mention that Auburn's plans have been scaled back a bit from the original plan, due to the $$$ situation because of B'burg's unexpected closure.

So, anyway, the point is, even with a building bid of $26 Mil. there, there's quite a bit more on the side to add in.

**simple man** · July 11th, 2011, 10:36 AM

Originally Posted by VHSLhelper

Montgomery County's SB just approved a contract for building a new Blacksburg High, a new Auburn High, and renovations to make AHS the new AMS, and their numbers don't look like what Wise Co. is tossing around.

Branch & Associates says the 600 student, 175,000 sq. ft. Auburn High BUILDING will cost $26.1 Mil.
Add in their other stuff and it comes to $35.6 Mil.
Add in, oh, a quarter of the $14 Mil. "furnishings" cost, or $3.5 Mil., and Auburn's ACTUAL cost is $39 Mil.
(and this is less than $44.6 Mil. that had been proposed before BHS' gym roof collapsed.)

Wise is saying a 750-student HS for $25 Mil... right?
How will they do it?

Montgomery County school board OKs construction for 3 new schools - Roanoke.com

Easy, we are going to double the tax to pay for schools. No one wanted to raise taxes to repair the old schools, no one wanted to raise taxes to build new ones, you can't have anything without paying for it.