Creekside school addition plans progressing

SPEARFISH Plans on the Creekside Elementary School addition are moving forward, and school officials may be ready to send the project to bid as soon as the first week of December.

Jason Roberdeau, with Williams and Associates, the firm designing the additional space, updated the Spearfish School Board members on Oct. 11 of the progress.

Two wings of the school, on the north and south, will have two classrooms and one specials room each. Additionally, a conference room will be included.

Architects estimated the construction and related fees will cost around $1.25 million and another $250,000 or so in soft costs such as furnishing the four classrooms and two specials rooms. The board members approved a plan in September for $1.5 million in financing needed for the addition. The financing will be retired in December 2019.

Current plans show the drawings to be complete in November. And the bid is expected to be as soon as Dec. 4.

The school board is expected to then accept or reject the bids at its meeting on Dec. 8 or Jan. 12, 2015. If a bid is accepted on Dec. 8, construction may start during Christmas break.

The construction crews are to keep the impact to students to a minimum.

Creekside Elementary School was completed in 2011 with what school officials and designers thought would be plenty of room. That extra space was filled in two years. Currently there are eight sections of third grade and seven each of fourth and fifth grade. To add an eighth section of third grade, school officials turned a special education room into a traditional classroom.

Next school year there will likely be a need for a ninth section of third grade and perhaps a 10th section if numbers remain consistent for the 2016-2017 school year.

There are currently seven traditional classrooms in each of the three wings of the school.

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Creekside school addition plans progressing