Ann Arbor schools approves 14 paving projects for summer
Summer is the season for school capital improvements projects, and the Ann Arbor Public Schools Board of Education last week approved the first of its scheduled improvements for when school lets out.
Parking lots at Huron High School will be repaved this summer.
Daniel Brenner | AnnArbor.com
The 14 schools set to receive new pavement in their parking lots or on their athletic courts are:
- Ann Arbor Technological High School, Huron High School and the Roberto Clemente Student Development Center
- Forsythe, Scarlett, Slauson and Tappan middle schools
- Allen, Bryant, Dicken, Haisley, Northside and Wines elementary schools
- Ann Arbor Preschool and Family Center
Most are parking lot projects, however, Tappan's tennis courts will be redone.
School officials put out a request for proposals for the paving projects and received bids from seven companies. Contract awards were given to the lowest, qualified bidders, Best Asphalt of Romulus, in the amount of $377,535, and Quality Asphalt of Howell, in the amount of $60,208.
Another summer project will be replacing the exterior doors at 12 schools.
Danielle Arndt covers K-12 education for AnnArbor.com. Follow her on Twitter @DanielleArndt or email her at daniellearndt@annarbor.com.
Comments
J. A. Pieper
Tue, May 14, 2013 : 1:13 a.m.
I believe it is the "lowest quality bidders" because the parking lot at my school was done within the last five years, and it is scheduled to be done again? Sorry, you had it correct the first time!
Haran Rashes
Mon, May 13, 2013 : 11:31 p.m.
Will AAPS be adding any parking at the high schools? It is my understanding that juniors at Huron do not automatically get parking permits, but have to enter a lottery for a very few spaces. If they do as threatened, and eliminate high school busing, this will become an even bigger problem.
Basic Bob
Tue, May 14, 2013 : 1:49 a.m.
Doubtful many more kids will be driving since most parents can't afford the extra car for their older kids, and the younger ones can't drive yet. It will just be gridlock on Geddes, Fuller, and Huron Parkway from 7:00 to 8:00 every morning for parents dropping their kids off. And a few more accidents as teenagers with cars are encouraged to give rides to neighbors - contrary to state law and sensible parenting. Juniors having to park the Audi in a dirt lot is the least of my concerns.
Danielle Arndt
Mon, May 13, 2013 : 2:20 p.m.
I received some information from Randy Trent over the weekend about additional projects that will be taking place this summer: adding and repairing mechanical rooftop and building air-handling units at 14 school facilities, replacing the last set of older fluorescent lights and installing 700-plus motion sensors in hallways and rooms to better control lighting, heat, ventilating and air conditioning. The last two pieces are part of a $2 million energy savings project, which speaks a little to Stephen Ranzini's comment.
Danielle Arndt
Mon, May 13, 2013 : 8:04 p.m.
Don, while I appreciate your opinion and agree that there are a number of additional questions that could be asked. There are a number of issues that would always benefits from an in-depth analysis, and we try to provide that on a regular basis. At the same time, there is a vast quantity of other issues to report on in the districts across the county each day, and we want to be sure readers are informed of them as well. The purpose of this brief was simply to tell the community of something that was approved at Wednesday's Board of Education meeting, so the public could be aware that parking may be an issue at their child's school over the summer while this project is completed. I added the additional information from Randy Trent so the public could be aware of other projects coming down the pipe this summer. The media serves many purposes — and public service is among them — in addition to "digging" or serving as a watchdog of public entities. Further, I'd be curious to learn where your intimate knowledge of the district's insulation and windows comes from. I'd be happy to look into these issues, if you'd like to email me some more information about why you feel these are legitimate concerns that require investigation. Thanks again.
DonBee
Mon, May 13, 2013 : 3:22 p.m.
Danielle - I appreciate your information, but you are pushing out what AAPS is giving you in "press releases" are for all intents and purposes. It would be nice to see you dig like David Jesse used to do. In the mean time insulation in a number of buildings on external walls are not up to reasonable levels, most of these buildings were built when energy was cheap. Insulation does not show, so no one seems to care. Which buildings have what "R" level of insulation and which meet sustainable building recommendations for retro-fit buildings? Same for windows, how many low-e thermal pane windows are their out of a population of how many thousands of windows? How many buildings lack air-locks on the main doors, allowing the doors to be open to the world? Have the Skyline environmental controls (heating and lights) ever been fixed so that people don't disable them? Many other questions on energy efficiency could be asked...
Nerak
Mon, May 13, 2013 : 1 p.m.
Alarictoo is correct. It should be "qualified."
alarictoo
Mon, May 13, 2013 : 12:26 p.m.
"Contract awards were given to the lowest quality bidders..." Danielle, you may want to find a better way of stating this... ;^)
Judy
Mon, May 13, 2013 : 4:53 p.m.
Please explain, "lowest qualified bidder." What do you mean? What type of "qualified" does the bidder have to have?
Danielle Arndt
Mon, May 13, 2013 : 2:09 p.m.
Oh good catch guys, thank you! It should be qualified, not quality. It's been fixed.
WalkingJoe
Mon, May 13, 2013 : 1:55 p.m.
Good catch, missed that when I first read the article.
A2anon
Mon, May 13, 2013 : 12:19 p.m.
AAPS is paving broken parking lots. Oh no! Definitely, we will find people who will criticize this wildly controversial decision! Who does the BOE think they are, anyway???
skigrl50
Mon, May 13, 2013 : 12:11 p.m.
If you visit some of these parking lots, you will see that they are prime for someone to easily fall. They should probably look into using something other than salt in the winter that destroys them.
WalkingJoe
Mon, May 13, 2013 : 11:43 a.m.
Have I got this right, they're planning on closing Roberto Clemente but they want to repave the parking lot?
Danielle Arndt
Mon, May 13, 2013 : 2:06 p.m.
WalkingJoe, closing Roberto Clemente is looking less and less likely again for the next school year. It was not a part of the administration's final recommended budget cuts: http://annarbor.com/news/education/list-high-school-transportation-middle-school-pools-among-867m-in-cuts-to-ann-arbor-schools-budget/.
DJBudSonic
Mon, May 13, 2013 : 11:59 a.m.
Just sprucing it up for the next tenant I guess.
Stephen Lange Ranzini
Mon, May 13, 2013 : 10:36 a.m.
The 2010 Sinking Fund has a fixed amount of funds and when they are gone, that's it. Are all these parking spots the number one priority for these funds? I would rather see the AAPS instead put sinking fund money into projects that help close the projected $8.56 million operating deficit projected next year. Projects like energy efficiency. $10 spent on energy efficiency (done well) is a $0.5 to 1 dollar savings per year in utility expense.
J. A. Pieper
Tue, May 14, 2013 : 1:18 a.m.
Stephen, the key word here is your phrase "done well" and it does not always apply when the district used the "Lowest quality bidder" - sorry, I work for AAPS, and other than everything at Skyline, and maybe Balas, everything is certainly lowest quality!
Basic Bob
Mon, May 13, 2013 : 10:22 a.m.
Why don't they replace all the signs in the parking lot at Huron with purple "P 11" spray-painted on them?