School gets cost for removing asbestos

The OSFC will cover about $333,000 of the cost.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- It will cost more than $400,000 to remove asbestos from Chaney High School as part of a building renovation project.
The Youngstown Board of Education voted this week to seek bids on the job. The Ohio School Facilities Commission will pick up most of the cost.
The renovation of Chaney, estimated at $25.5 million, is the second-largest single building improvement project in the district's $202 million rebuilding program that will eventually see the replacement or renovation of 13 school buildings.
Only the new East High School now under construction at a cost of $30.1 million is larger.
School districts are required to remove or encapsulate asbestos materials in major renovation projects.
Heery International Inc. of Youngstown, project architect, has estimated that it will cost $416,000 to remove asbestos from Chaney, excluding the auditorium.
The OSFC will pick up 80 percent of that amount.
Removing asbestos from the auditorium portion of the renovation is strictly a cost the district must bear.
The OSFC doesn't reimburse for renovation of noninstructional areas in a building project, and Youngstown has set money aside in a Local Funding Initiative account to cover those expenses.
Heery estimated it will cost about $22,000 to remove asbestos found in the auditorium, an additional $6,000 for removal of the auditorium seats and $60,000 more to demolish the plaster ceiling.
The Chaney renovation project is to be completed by fall 2007.
Elementary school
The school board also approved a $74,027 change order for the North Elementary School project.
That money will go to Dave Sugar Excavating Inc. of Petersburg, which is doing the demolition work on the old school building.
Tony DeNiro, assistant superintendent of school business affairs, said Sugar's original contract called for bringing in 7,000 cubic yards of soil to level the demolition site after the building was removed.
It has been determined, however, that some unsuitable soils were found on the site after the old building was demolished and must be removed, DeNiro said, adding that an old tunnel on the site also was excavated and must be filled in.
The change order will pay Sugar to bring in an additional 6,079 cubic yards of new fill to prepare for construction of the new building on the same site. The OSFC will pick up 80 percent of the cost.
The North construction project has a price of $8.6 million.
gwin@vindy.com