The renovation work at two Jacksonville School District 117 elementary schools is drawing to a close.
Vision 117 Coordinator Bob Roads says that Washington Elementary’s completion benefited from the most recent holiday weekend: “The construction company was at Washington and worked over this last holiday, and did some exemplary work in the building in terms of getting items done. We are down to just a handful of items now. They said they are going to come back within the week and hopefully accommodate all of those remaining items. We are real close to being wrapped up at Washington, and the work they did this past weekend was very good.”
The district had withheld pay invoices on two separate occasions from Johnco Construction due to incomplete work, despite students occupying the building again this school year.
Roads says that Eisenhower’s progress is on schedule with a few exceptions: “At Eisenhower, everything is going very well. For the most part, with the exception of the gym, all of the windows are in the building now and the glass is in the windows. They have started working on the entry-ways into the building. Most of the north classrooms have been repainted. Most of the hallways have been repainted. They have started installing all of the cabinetry in the classrooms. It’s starting to look more like a finished product now. They won’t be putting the tops on the cabinetry until they get the ceiling in on the roof, because they don’t want to hang them twice and they don’t want to get into a situation where they may drop something onto them and break them.”
Roads says they are only waiting on one item for Eisenhower that should not affect the reoccupation of the school by this coming Fall: “The outside panels were delayed again for another month, which means the completion date which was originally scheduled at the end of March and then, the end of April is now the end of May. For the most part, everything on the interior of the building will be completed before that occurs.”
Roads says that the delivery date on the outside panels has not been 100% confirmed and may be delayed again.
Once completed, Eisenhower’s renovation will have cost north of $8.2 million, approximately $400,000 higher than the original bid.