More site upgrades are coming to Turlock Junior High School, which has entered phase two of a modernization project after a bid was accepted by the TUSD school board at Tuesday's meeting.

“It’s been a long time in the making, but we’re excited to move forward with Turlock Junior High School Modernization,” said Barney Gordon, Assistant Superintendent of Business Services.

Phase one of the project started in January 2020 and mostly consisted of security fencing, parking lot upgrades, and in-ground infrastructure.

Phase two is going to focus on classroom renovations, site improvements and replacing the HVAC system. According to Gordon, the primary goal of the project is to fix the central air conditioning system. Other specific improvements to the classrooms include: New LED lighting, new flooring, new fire alarm system, new audio-visual systems and fresh paint.

“In addition to the classroom upgrades, all student restrooms will be completely renovated as will the student locker rooms in the gymnasium,” Gordon said.

In 2016, TUSD used resources courtesy of Proposition 39 to update lighting in all schools with LED lights, with the exception of Turlock Junior High.

“We intentionally skipped Turlock Junior High School because we knew we wanted to get the entire campus renovated. We set what we could’ve possibly spent back then aside and we’ll obviously spend that here,” Gordon said.

When phase two was initially proposed in September it was estimated to cost $13,000,094, however, the final cost will be $17,810,129.00. The funding will come from Bond Measure N.

“Our estimate in September of 2020 was a $13 million base bid with a 5 percent contingency, which brought the estimate up to $13.65 million. The contract price of the contract is now $16.28 million base bid, plus a 5 percent contingency as well as an additional optional alternate (which was not included in the original estimate) of $644 thousand to paint the exterior of the campus, bringing the final contract cost to $17.8 million,” Gordon said. “Understanding that, the base bid is about $3 million more than our estimates from a year ago for a variety of reasons including escalation, labor and materials costs.”

CT Brayton & Sons, Inc. was awarded the bid for the project, which is required to be finished on or before Aug. 31, 2023.

There were some site improvements that were removed from the project. Most of them are items related to maintenance.

“We were going to work on the second deck by the sidewalk and we’re going to push that off to a later point,” Gordon said.

To keep updated with all of TUSD’s Bond Measure projects, visit www.turlock.k12.ca.us/Domain/1236.