Great Falls firm to do schools' revamp

A Great Falls firm will do the renovations on Havre High School and Sunnyside Intermediate School.

The Havre school board approved the firm’s low bid at a meeting Monday.

The Sunnyside and Havre High expansions were both awarded to Talcott Construction. Talcott’s bid on phase one of the Sunnyside renovation and expansion project, which includes added four more classrooms onto the existing building, was $1,715,600, which will save the district $500,000 that they can use to pay for phase two.

The district used Talcott Construction to repair the high school roof collapse of December 2010.

The other companies that bid on the project were Diamond Construction, with $1,850,000 and Sletten Construction, with $2,009,000.

The high school wrestling and locker room renovations received four bids for the projects. The district total budget for the project was $2,359,000 and Talcott’s bid came $78,000 under that at $2,291,000.

The other companies who bid on the locker room project were Diamond Construction with $2,844,800, Sletten Construction with $2,601,800 and Oswood Construction with $2,344,000.

The Havre Middle School parking lot renovation received only one bid, and it was from Baltrusch Construction, a Havre-based company. Its bid was $320,378, which was well under the engineer’s estimate of $523,067. The money used to pay this comes from the same fund being used to renovate Sunnyside.

Construction of the projects is slated to begin soon after school is let out for the year.