The Macon County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved committing $1.05 million to the next steps of the Franklin High School project, which is now estimated to cost $18 million less than before.
The vote came during the commissioners’ Feb. 9 budget kickoff meeting.
As confirmed by County Manager Derek Roland, the motion approves authorizing the architect to proceed with the design development of the main campus, which is one all-encompassing building, and move forward with preparing construction and bid documents for the stadium complex.
“I’m at a point where I’ve kicked this thing long enough…In my mind, I’m ready to go,” Commissioner Josh Young said prior to making a motion.
The vote authorizes the county to spend $1,050,242 for two purposes. The design of the main campus (Phase Two) comes at a cost of $714,242, while preparing bid documents for the stadium complex (Phase One) cost $336,000. The money comes from what’s left in the 2022-23 FHS Project Fund ($335,122) with the remainder ($715,120) coming out of the county’s fund balance.
The motion was recommended by LS3P’s Senior Vice President Paul Boney and Senior Project Manager Emily Kite, who were present to give an update on the FHS project. Boney stressed the importance of moving forward with the project, specifically as it relates to applying for grants.
According to Boney, the cost estimates for the entire project have been reduced from the $118,420,233 figure presented in October to $100,239,509, a 15% reduction. From that, the main building subtotal got reduced from $104,244,778 to $89,339,509 and the stadium complex cost went down from $14,175,455 to $10,900,000. Boney said the numbers are estimates until the designs are finished later this year.
Boney said part of the reason for the drop is because the cost escalation has gone down several million since the stadium is on track for being bid out in September. Another reason is reducing the number of retaining walls. Additionally, Boney said some duplications have been eliminated after meeting with the liaison committee the previous week.
Answering a question asked by Board Chair Paul Higdon, Boney said one of those duplications was taking 7,000 square feet out of the football stadium’s field house that was previously earmarked for weight rooms, locker rooms, training rooms and laundry rooms. Boney said that 12,000 square feet in the main building will be slated for similar purposes.
Commissioner John Shearl questioned removing those 7,000 square feet, saying it felt to him like settling for less. Higdon said he’s neutral on the adjustments, saying he’s still digesting them.
Boney defended the reductions, saying he was following a mandate by the commissioners to save them as much money as possible. Boney added that if the project won’t be first-class and first-rate, he doesn’t want to be a part of it.
“I don’t want the audience and [don’t] want everybody to think we are just whacking this thing just to whack it,” Boney said.
According to an updated project timeline, the project will be completely done at the start of the 2026-27 school year, with both phases moving in concert with each other.
Macon County Schools Superintendent Chris Baldwin said none of the scenarios presented would affect the 2023 FHS football season as construction wouldn’t begin until November at the earliest.
As far as the timeline of the entire project, Kite said that the plan is to have the Phase Two drawings done by the fourth quarter of this year and go to the Local Government Commission for financing approval in January 2024. Once LGC approval is attained, full construction can begin.
Union Academy consolidation
Part of the recommendations made at the meeting from LS3P included consolidating Union Academy into Franklin High School. Boney indicated that consolidating Union Academy into FHS would help the county’s application for the $50 million Needs-Based Public School Capital Fund from the N.C. Department of Public Instruction. The county unsuccessfully applied for the grant in 2022 but plans on re-applying until they get it.
Boney told the commissioners he would start re-writing the grant application immediately to include the Union Academy consolidation.
Baldwin said the discussions about merging Union Academy back into FHS are a recent development.
“In order to provide the best educational opportunities for our students in the most efficient manner possible, many different scenarios are considered on an ongoing basis,” Baldwin said. “However, a serious discussion about the consolidation of Union Academy was initiated in the past few weeks after the joint meeting between the county commissioners and school board.
“We have more than two years to develop a sound plan for the effective and efficient integration of Union Academy and Franklin High School.”
Union Academy, located at the site of the former Union Elementary School, is an alternative school for grades 7-12 that serves just over 100 kids. Union Academy was split off from FHS previously due to lack of space at the high school.
Funding options
Regarding the $50 million grant, Boney said the state is tired of having school systems leave the money they’ve been awarded sitting in a bank, so moving forward with both phases of the FHS plans will show the state that Macon County will spend the grant money ASAP.
“I can’t get a $50 million grant just for a stadium,” Boney told the commissioners. Commissioner Gary Shields stressed he didn’t want the message in the community to be that the county is just building a stadium, but rather that the stadium and school are one big project.
“We may not all be in agreement right now with where we’re going with building a new high school, [but] we got to get to a certain point with that,” Commissioner Danny Antoine said, adding that’s it’s not fair to waste Boney and Kite’s time to not give them answers and wanted to either move forward or not.
Both Boney and the commissioners noted there will be more discussions and votes in the future.
Speaking during his scheduled time later in the meeting, Baldwin thanked the commissioners for moving forward with the FHS project, saying many of the structural issues have “been addressed with band-aids for 30 years.”
Antoine said it’s frustrating to him that the ADA issues, brought up multiple times in previous meetings, have not been addressed since they were first discovered in 1993 because of the long-standing promises of building a new high school.
Earlier in the meeting, Mitch Brigulio, senior vice president with Davenport and Associates, gave an update on the county’s capital improvement plan and credit. Brigulio said the county currently has a credit rating of Aa2 and AA, per Moody’s and S&P, respectively. Brigulio said those ratings are very strong and gives the county more leverage to borrow money for the FHS project.
As part of LS3P’s planned update, LS3P presented a plan to move 94,000 total cubic yards of dirt that would be needed for the construction project. Instead of maybe moving the dirt to the stadium for the time being, Kite presented the option of moving it to the “Frogtown” property, located along Phillips Street. Kite said that property could hold 210,000 total cubic yards of dirt. The dirt would be kept away from the stream that runs through the property, with drawings showing a buffer zone between where the dirt would go and the stream. Boney said pushing dirt into that protected stream would be a big issue resulting in criminal actions.