School board rejects bid for Bumpus athletic upgrades

By JON ANDERSON

The Hoover school board in April voted to reject a bid to upgrade the athletic facilities at Bumpus Middle School after the lowest bid came in higher than school officials had budgeted. However, the board approved renovation work at the Riverchase Career Connection Center.

The proposed project at Bumpus involved new home bleachers, restrooms, a concession stand, lighting, a press box and fieldhouse for the football field and a press box and lighting for the softball field.

School officials budgeted $4.45 million for the project, but the lowest bid — from Blalock Building Co. — came in at $4.5 million for the base part of the bid and a total of $5,363,000 when alternate projects were included, such as the storage building and softball part of the project, said Matt Wilson, the school system’s director of operations. The second bid was significantly higher, Wilson said.

Superintendent Dee Fowler recommended the school board reject the bids and said he would like to break the project into smaller, more affordable pieces and take another look at the project for the next fiscal year.

“We don’t want to drag our feet,” Fowler said.

A similar athletic field upgrade is planned for Berry Middle School, but planning for that project has trailed the Bumpus project.

The school board did approve a bid from Duncan & Thompson Construction to convert one classroom at the Riverchase Career Connection Center into a cosmetology and barbering classroom, with the equipment for such instruction.