DCHS, AHS fields making progress; winter weather affects timeline at AHS

April 18, 2019 | 3:14 am

Updated April 17, 2019 | 10:24 pm

The DCHS stadium renovation is going very well and, while construction is a little behind, they are still close to being on schedule. | Photo by AP Imagery

Now that the winter weather has subsided and the ground is beginning to warm, there is notable progress being made to the stadium, track and parking lot projects at both Daviess County and Apollo High Schools.

The projects, which were approved in October 2018, include stadium renovation and construction, as well as parking lot repair at DCHS and a new parking lot at AHS, by Danco Construction. Danco placed the lowest bid for both projects, which is still estimated to total approximately $10 million in construction costs.

Mike Ranney, principal architect for RBS Design Group, said in October that unanticipated issues regarding earthwork, paving and storm drainage had already been brought to his attention.
On Tuesday, at the Daviess County Public Schools Board luncheon at Highland Elementary School, a change order of the DCHS track and football field renovations was brought under consideration.

“As with any project, we’ve run into a few little issues,” said DCPS Director of Finance Sara Harley. “We needed to remove a tree, some light poles and we had to do some soil remediation. We did some drainage for the greenhouse and had to reroute a sewer line.”

Harley opened up the floor to Ranney who informed the board that such inconveniences as the placement of oak trees, an old drain that failed on the west side of the track and deteriorating soil have caused minor issues here and there.

“There have been at least six to eight unforeseen items as we went along,” Ranney said. “We will probably have some more. The overall project is still on schedule — despite these issues — it’s coming along fine.”

Ranney said soil and drainage have not been the only issues, as Mother Nature has not been kind to progress either.

“Weather has been terrible this whole entire winter,” Ranney said. “It did not affect DCHS near as much as Apollo. It [Apollo] is behind schedule, but they’re trying to make up time.”

Apollo High School renovation. | Photo by AP Imagery

The biggest issue at AHS so far has been the need for soil stabilization.

“When you have soils that are unsatisfactory for building on, you have to do something to remediate it,” Ranney said. “Soil stabilization is like putting concrete into the soil — it essentially makes it hard. That was something we had planned to do all along, but due to the weather, it didn’t happen until about a month ago.”

Ranney added that the DCHS stadium renovation was going very well and, while they were a little behind, they were still close to being on schedule, hoping to finish around August or September of the coming school year. However, since AHS is currently behind schedule, he did not have a firm completion date yet.

“Right now, I can’t say exactly when they will be done,” Ranney said. “We are hoping for the end of November for the parking lot at Apollo. We set goals at the construction meeting, and we are trying to meet them.”

Thursday evening, at the regularly scheduled DCPS school board meeting, “a turf-type situation” at the high schools will be considered for approval.

April 18, 2019 | 3:14 am

Share this Article

Other articles you may like