W-M moves forward with windows

By MEGAN HUGHES

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Wakefield — The Wakefield-Marenisco school board proceeded Monday with plans to install new windows across the school.

At last month’s meeting, the board heard a bid from Nasi Construction with a price tag of just over $1 million to re-window the entire school. The board decided, in order to lower the cost, they would not update the gymnasium windows at this time, instead focusing on the rest of the school building. This lowered the price to $869,719, which remained $100,000 over budget for the project.

Since the December meeting, Carrie Goodfrey of Integrated Design in Marquette, a design specialist hired to help with infrastructure projects, worked with Nasi Construction to find ways to lower the costs. The price got lowered by approximately $40,000 by changing the window manufacturer to one of equal quality, but a less well-known name.

The updated bid discussed at Monday’s meeting came to approximately $830,000.

“So, when we switched glass manufacturers, did it change any of the specs or anything like that?” asked school board president Brad Dalbec.

“Both of the manufacturers that gave prices were high-end window manufacturers. It’s the brand. Typically, we use a spec that is modeled after one brand in particular and have a few other people that (make them),” said Goodfrey.

The board took a roll call vote, and unanimously decided to accept the bid and move forward to with the project.

Any costs over budget will be pulled from the school’s general fund, according to Dalbec.

Rodney Schatz, project manager with Nasi Construction, was at the meeting. “At this point, Carrie will give us a letter of award first and work on writing up a contract, and I will start working on shop drawings,” he said.

Schatz said he didn’t see the windows arriving before May. Based on this, the project is planned to begin in the summer, in June at the earliest.

“The motion is carried, this is very, very exciting. This is the biggest project that we’ve had at this school since the ’90s probably. We are excited. Thank you Carrie and Rodney for your work,” said Dalbec.

According to superintendent Jason Gustafson, the windows were last updated sometime between the ’60s and ’70s, as he has photos in his office from both those times, one with and one without the current windows.