WEST ALEXANDRIA — Construction began on Twin Valley Community Local School’s K-12 new roof on July 26.
The project was a result of a permanent improvement levy approved by the community in March 2016, and a partnership with the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission.
Though the construction did get started late due to some delays, it is now under way and ahead of schedule, although only on its second week.
“Back in March of 2016 we asked our tax payers to approve a permanent improvement fund and that was to replace the building bond issue that had been on the books previously,” Superintendent Bob Fischer said. “That bond issue was to build the facility that we currently sit in. Fortunately, the voters overwhelmingly approved that PI and that brings in more than a million dollars to add for permanent improvements.
“A lot of this was started a while ago. The district had several audits on its roof back in fall of 2015 — they had several companies come in and look at the roof,” he said. “It was a 20-plus year-old roof. We knew it needed some improvement. When the bond issue passed, we reached out to the Ohio Facilities Construction Council, so OFCC at that time, and asked about the possibilities to do a joint project.
“After a lot of discussion, we were able to come to an agreement around spring break on what potential pricing. We had in mind what we would try to accomplish with OFCC,” Fischer said. “We wanted to do something to protect our investments. We were originally prepared to just do our flat roofs, which would have covered our common areas, some of our hallway areas, and also try to figure out a way to replace the roofs over our two existing gyms and our auditoriums.”
He added, when the pricing came back from the bidders they were pleasantly surprised and saw they could fix the entire roof.
On June 10, the board of education approved the contract after three weeks of collecting bids. There were six bids in total. The board selected Kelly Brothers, which was the lowest bidder and also had a good reputation. The architecture company helping run the project is the RDA Group, out of Dayton.
Fischer noted, there has been one problem with the roof construction.
“The project did not start when we wanted it to. We were looking at starting it at the beginning of July, since we approved it at the beginning of June,” he said. “The problem we ran into was timing. Summer is a busy time for contractors anyways and we thought that might be a problem, but what we started running into is that the manufacturer has to make pieces of what we need. They don’t keep it in stock, they have to specifically manufacture it. As a result, we ended up becoming delayed with that.”
Fischer added, they were never going to have construction finished by time school began, even if they had started the project on time.
As is, the work is expected to be finished in November.
“A lot of that depends on weather. Rain days can delay it,” Fischer noted.
“This project is protecting the investment of the school,” he said.
“The roof is a major structure in keeping the building in good shape,” he said. “If you have a poor roof a lot of things can happen. Having the roof replaced and knowing that it’s going to be good for another 20 years, that’s a huge investment for the district.
“The old roof needed replaced because it was the original roof that was put on in 1995,” he said. “That roof was only meant to last 10 years originally. They got a lot of life out of it, but we noticed damage over the years. Now we’re adding at least another 20 years, but we think we’ll go 30 years without having to worry about it.
“We’re just grateful for our taxpayers allowing us this opportunity. If it wasn’t for them passing that levy, this project would not be possible without impacting some other aspect of the school.”
