South St. Louis County News

St. Louis Call Newspapers

South St. Louis County News

St. Louis Call Newspapers

South St. Louis County News

St. Louis Call Newspapers

Mehlville board approves multiple facilities bids

The Mehlville Board of Education considered and unanimously accepted three bids Feb. 24 for serving line replacements at six schools, partial roof replacement at six schools, and the Oakville Elementary School parking lot. 

Serving line bids 

Every summer, the district’s School Food and Nutrition Department replaces low functioning or non-functioning food equipment in various Mehlville facilities. Food and Nutrition Director Katie Gegg said the department was planning to replace serving lines at Beasley, Blades, Rogers, Trautwein and Wohlwend elementaries and Washington Middle. 

“The current ones … They’re older, they’re a little institutional looking. We are moving towards ones that have a high-quality appearance. … The students are customers. We want them to feel like we’re their restaurant and when you go to nicer restaurants … it sometimes makes the food taste better,” Katie Gegg said. 

Serving lines were replaced in the summer of 2020 at Forder, Hagemann and Point elementaries and Katie Gegg said the new serving lines would be identical to the ones replaced in 2020. 

“They’re all custom built for each school but as far as the materials and the way they look, they are very similar,” Katie Gegg said. “They’re very nice and they really do make the environment more welcome.” 

The district received bids from two vendors for the serving lines, with Katie Gegg recommending to go with the vendor Boelter, who had the lowest total qualified bid for all six serving lines at $431,628. The serving lines will be paid for out of school funds. 

Katie Gegg said she did not expect to replace serving lines at any more schools for the time being, since those are more up-to-date and have a better serving flow for students. 

Roof replacement bids 

Facilities Director Mike Gegg presented bids to the board for partial roof replacement at six schools: Bierbaum Elementary, Washington Middle, Trautwein Elementary, Mehlville High, Wohlwend Elementary and Point Elementary.

The partial roof replacements are part of the facilities department’s 15-year replacement schedule. 

Mike Gegg recommended the board contract with Bartic for the roof replacement at Point, Washington and Wohlwend for a total of $887,320, which includes permit, professional and contingency fees. The facilities director recommended contracting with Shay for Mehlville, Trautwein and Bierbaum for a total of $816,932, including permit and contingency fees. 

Both Bartic and Shay have done facility work for Mehlville in the past. 

“Both have done great work for us, they’re some of my top two pics. We’ve had very good success with them,” Mike Gegg said.

Oakville Elementary parking lot 

Renovations to Oakville Elementary’s parking lot will proceed this summer after the district obtained the necessary permits to begin construction in January. The renovations are part of Proposition S, the district’s $35-million no-tax-rate increase bond measure for facility needs passed by voters in April 2021. 

At the Feb. 24 meeting, Mike Gegg recommended contracting with Castle Construction for $1.63 million, including $50,000 in deductions and $75,000 in contingency fees built into the bid. 

Part of the construction on the parking lot will begin this school year, with some of the site work and the demolition of an existing building on the property obtained by the district for the lot in 2020. 

“We’ve had ongoing conversations about the impact this parking lot may cause. … (Starting in March) advances that pace that they can do over the summer. There always remains the possibility that weather could impede progress and by the first of the school year we are not completely finished but … we are confident we can make this happen,” Executive Director of Planning and Operations Chad Dickemper said. 

Superintendent Chris Gaines added that the parking lot most likely would not be complete by the start of the 2022-2023 school year, but that the most disruptive parts of the project should be wrapped up before students returned. 

“We’re thinking that because they’ll get an early … start to kind of do some of the work outside of the existing … building, we’re hoping that we’re talking about an early September completion,” Gaines said. “If we have three weeks of rain, that could change that. If we have great weather the entire time, they might be able to wrap it up more quickly.” 

More to Discover