City hires firm to help with reviews of Navarro High School project

(Seguin) -- The Navarro ISD is moving forward with its plans to soon begin construction on its new high school. While the district gets closer to its official groundbreaking, the city of Seguin is also working to make sure the plans for the project meet all of its requirements.

The city this week agreed to hire BB Inspections to handle plan review services for the Navarro High School Project. Planning Director Pamela Centeno says it’s not unusual for the city to hire an outside firm to conduct these services on the city’s behalf.

“The city of Seguin already has third party services for inspections and has a contract also for plan review. However, the current contract that we utilize is set up on an hourly rate for plan reviews or a plan review for residential. For a large project like Navarro High School, that has now been submitted for review, it needs a different price/fee structure setup for that, so the city of Seguin is proposing to utilize the BB Inspections who we currently use for our residential inspections and plan reviews as needed for the Navarro High School plan review,” said Centeno.

The council only approved the plan review services at this time, but Centeno says that BB Inspections is also expected to be hired to conduct the building inspections on the project once construction begins on the new high school.

“This is just for the plan review at this time. This is also not about the fee charged to the school. We will bring that back to you at a future meeting. We have proposed it for the next meeting but I think we are going to move that to the first week in September. That way we also have an opportunity to reach out to Navarro ISD who had requested consideration for a waiver to the actual fee charged to the school,” said Centeno.

The school district has indeed requested that the city waive most of its fees in relationship to the project. The council held brief discussions on that request earlier this year, but no action was taken. Once the plan review and inspection contracts with BB Inspections are finalized, the request for fee waivers will likely again be presented to the city council for possible approval.

Navarro ISD officials say they hope to officially break ground on the project later this month. The construction schedule calls for the new campus to be open in the fall of 2025.

City recruiting donors for today’s blood drive

(Seguin) -- The city of Seguin is doing its part in answering the call to help round up some blood donors as the nation continues to face a critical shortage.

The city of Seguin is again partnering with the South Texas Blood & Tissue Center to host a blood drive on Tuesday. The bloodmobile will be at the Seguin Coliseum parking lot from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Donors will receive a free t-shirt, while supplies last.

To donate, individuals must be at least 16 years old, weigh 120 pounds and present a signed parental consent form or be 17 years or older and weigh at least 110 pounds.

They are also asked to be in good general health and must be able to provide a valid photo ID.

The blood drive is open to the entire community. Appointments can be made online at donor. southtexasblood.org.

The Seguin Coliseum is located at 950 S. Austin St.