Keith Vandervort
ELY –No turning back now. Demolition of the Ely school Industrial Arts building started Monday afternoon as the $20 million facility renovation project moves forward for ISD 696.
School board members gathered a couple of hours later and were briefed on how they hope to proceed with a project that was bid millions of dollars over budget.
District leaders formally rejected the entire second phase construction bid package that came in last month at more than $8 million, twice the amount that was estimated.
School officials and project managers are now facing the prospect of working through possible major reductions of as much as $ 4 million in renovating the existing school campus buildings when they re-bid that portion of the project later this fall.