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A construction team’s been chosen, the cost has been set and work will begin later this month on Prince Edward County Elementary’s renovation. Over the last week, a number of different pieces fell into place for the project, which got the final approval it needed from the school board during their Wednesday, Oct. 9 meeting.

Three companies bid on the project, including Lynchburg-based companies English Construction and Jamerson Lewis Construction, along with Kenbridge Construction, which has been handling installation of the mobile units at the school. The lowest bidder was English Construction, coming in at $38,097,500. The Prince Edward School Board unanimously accepted them as the winning bid last week. Currently, attorneys for the school district and construction company are finalizing the language in the contract. As it stands, that should be done, with a notice to proceed, by Oct. 18. The group will start work after that, with a full schedule provided to the school district within 21 days of that notice to proceed.

“It’s an exciting day,” said School Board Vice Chair Susan Kimbrough.

So what happens next? That would be moving teachers into their new mobile classrooms, which is hopefully going to take place over fall break. Kenbridge Construction is also still at work connecting the 15 mobile classrooms to all the utility systems. The goal is to be able to move third and fourth grade students into the classrooms by the end of this month. Construction itself should also begin by the end of the month, as English Construction looks to tear down buildings E and F in the first phase. Those are the two oldest buildings at the school. When everything is finished, they’ll be replaced with new construction connecting the remaining buildings, making it much easier to travel between classrooms

WHAT ABOUT MONEY?

As mentioned above, the winning bid came in at $38,097,500. That’s going to be paid for using three pots of money. First, Prince Edward County received a $8.655 million grant from the Virginia Capital Projects Fund. Second, the county applied for and got a loan through the Virginia Literary Loan Fund. That was $25 million, to be paid back over a 20-year period at a rate of 3% interest. The remaining portion will be paid through bonds issued by the Virginia Public School Authority (VPSA). That’ll be paid back over a 25-year period, at a 4% interest rate.

So when all is said and done, including interest, Prince Edward will pay $61.358 million to cover the cost of the project. Prince Edward County Administrator Doug Stanley told the school board everyone was lucky that the English bid came in as low as it did.

“If we were (taking) the second or third bids, we would not have been here this evening,” he told the group. “We wouldn’t have had enough money.”

Stanley said the county had a number of things go right, in order to make this work. While the project came in about $5 million higher than they originally expected last year, the interest rates were lower, so it balanced out. Also, there’s still the potential Prince Edward could end up paying less, if the proposed 1% sales tax bill gets revived in the General Assembly. This past session, the bill made it to Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s desk, but he vetoed it.

WHAT WILL BE CHANGING?

Even after construction starts, most everything will remain the same this school year for parents and students. For the rest of this school year, you’ll still be dropping off and picking up your student in the same place as you do now at the school. Parents also won’t be losing any parking spaces to construction right now. Current plans have all of that set to start changing next summer, coinciding with the completion of the new main front door and library. The school’s front entrance should be relocated by July 2025, getting traffic off Eagle Drive and creating a loop that makes both drop-off and pick-up easier for parents, students and staff.