By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

ALABASTER – The Alabaster Board of Education voted to reject a pair of bids for the city’s new high school project during a Nov. 9 meeting, citing higher-than-expected prices, and will rebid the project in multiple smaller segments.

The School Board voted unanimously during the meeting to reject the two bids after the school system felt “the bids were not competitive,” said Alabaster School Superintendent Dr. Wayne Vickers.

“(Project managers) Volkert and McKee (and Associates architects) discussed this matter at-length with me, and we didn’t feel they were competitive bids,” Vickers said.

The school system opened bids on the project on Oct. 20 after extending the deadline from its original date of Aug. 27. The bid sought companies interested in constructing a new high school between Thompson Road and Kent Dairy Road.

Once constructed, the school will be about 385,000 square feet, will initially be built to house 2,000 students and will be constructed with future expansions in mind.

The school will include 74 classrooms, 14 science lab classrooms, a 1,250-seat auditorium, a 150-seat black box theater, a 32,269-square-foot career academy and a 100-seat lecture hall.

During an interview after the meeting, Volkert Vice President Leon Barkan said the school originally was bid as a single large project including the main academic building, gyms, fine arts center and more.

“Our plan now is to go back to the market and package it differently to allow for a wider variety of responses,” Barkan said. “The market is definitely a lot less competitive right now because there is a lot more work. The market conditions are not unusual here, it’s really throughout the southeast.”

Vickers and Barkan said ACS is still shooting to open the new school to students in fall 2017, but said all facilities may not be completed by then. Barkan said the school system is planning to bid the main academic building “at the first of the year.”

The football stadium and athletic complex will be bid as a separate project, Barkan said.

“I think it will still be open (in fall 2017), as far as the main school building goes. That’s the goal,” Vickers said. “We really won’t know for sure until we get those bids back. We’re planning to open the main building first, and then it will be layered after that.”

Barkan said splitting the large high school project into three or four smaller bids likely will create more competition and lower prices.

“Ultimately, the school system will do what is in the best interest of getting the best bang for their buck,” Barkan said. “The School Board did a good job about being business-savvy about this decision.”