Karns City opens bids for Sugarcreek school demolition
KARNS CITY — Karns City Area School District moved another step closer to razing the former Sugarcreek Elementary School building as bids were opened and are now under consideration.
The district unsealed six bids at 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 6 at Karns City Area Jr./Sr. High School for the abatement and demolition of the former elementary school.
The building, located in Armstrong County, closed at the end of the 2023-24 school year. It was replaced by Karns City Area Elementary School. Since then, district officials have discussed what to do with the property. Demolishing the building was first considered last March.
Bids ranged in total cost by hundreds of thousands of dollars. The lowest bid was Ritenour & Sons Construction, based out of Connellsville, Fayette County, with a base bid of $243,000. The highest bid was from Demex LLC, of Butler, with a base bid of $788,297. Other bidding contractors included GEM, Hiles Excavating, Minniefield Demolition Services and Siegel Excavating, LLC.
The bids were opened by John Pappas, the district’s construction manager, with several other school officials and members of the public present.
Superintendent Eric Ritzert said the bids will be reviewed and discussed at the board’s next meeting on Monday.
“We’ll discuss it, and I would advise the board to try and make a decision. It would be my recommendation to make a decision,” Ritzert said.
The district had to follow specific rules. Waiting until exactly 1:30 p.m., they then opened the envelopes from the contractors and read aloud the base bids. They also confirmed whether contractors signed off on various required documents within the bids.
Pappas and Ritzert said the district is supposed to try and award contracts to the lowest bidders, as long as the contractors show they are able to fulfill the job.
“It’s the lowest, most responsible bidder, is what the guidelines are to be able to go ahead and award it,” Pappas said.
That’s why bidders had to sign off on a contract qualification statement, a document that identifies them as a justifiable bidder for the scope of work.
Pappas said this helps school districts when they may not know who some of the bidders are, and could be “trying to cut their teeth on a quarter-million dollar project when they’ve never done more than a $50,000 job.” It’s usually up to the solicitor and administrative team to determine whether the contractors are qualified to do the job.
“If somebody comes in here and has never done a job more than a house teardown, and says they can do it, they don’t have that track record, it could put the owner at risk, it could cost more in the long run,” Pappas said.
Potential contractors have to follow various steps and fill out a number of other documents within their proposals when bidding on school projects, including some mandated by the state.
This includes a “noncollusion affidavit,” an item that contractors sign off on to show they did not work with other contractors to inflate costs.
“It says as a bidder, on a state-funded project, I am filling out this paperwork saying that I did not collude with another bidder to try and come up with a number that was most favorable to the bidders. I’m putting a number in that I came up with without working with anybody else to inflate the numbers,” Pappas said.
Contractors also sign off on a bid bond, a guarantee they will honor the contract they are awarded, protecting the district from financial losses if obligations aren’t met.
According to the school district’s website, “School Board Policy 610: Competitive Bids,” establishes guidelines it must follow. The district must advertise it is seeking bids once a week, for three weeks in a row, in at least two newspapers of general circulation.
