Edhat Staff
Santa Barbara Unified School District Board of Education awarded AMG & Associates, Inc. – California based S-Corporation, a $28 million construction contract for Santa Barbara High School Peabody Stadium project. The construction contract is funded by the Foundation for Santa Barbara High School, Santa Barbara community bond measures, developer fees, and leverages State of California seismic mitigation funds. Construction efforts will begin in August and the stadium is expected to be complete April 2019.
“The awarding of this contract is a significant milestone for Santa Barbara Unified. We have completed an important piece of the puzzle of a long-standing community vision and critical need to modernize the nearly 100-year-old stadium,” said District Superintendent Cary Matsuoka. “The Board’s decision to award the contract recognized the responsibility to move forward, but also acknowledged the unique challenges our leadership team worked through to ensure the best project option and lowest price contractor.”
Last April the Santa Barbara Unified Board of Trustees rejected all multi-prime bids for the project that totaled $30 million in hard construction costs. Superintendent Matsuoka led an expanded team of district staff and stakeholders who met weekly with a goal to obtain the best and lowest price contractor to build the project. The group analyzed the project, evaluated potential alternative options including constructing the project off site and reducing the scope of work, obtained new cost estimates, adjusted the construction timeline, rebidded the project for a single general contractor, and broadened the bid-proposal outreach. The rebid opening was held on July 11th and the district received bid proposals from six general contractors for this project, with the lowest submitted bid from AMG & Associates in the amount of $28,764,392. The total project budget, including soft costs and a construction contingency, is $39 million.
“This is AMG & Associates first construction project with our District and I look forward to working with the construction team,” said the District’s Director of Facilities and Operations, David J. Hetyonk. “I am ready to get started on one of the largest single construction contracts in my nearly two decades with Santa Barbara Unified; and look forward to seeing it completed for the benefit of our students and community over the next century.”
The Santa Barbara High School Peabody Grandstand Replacement, Stadium Renovation, and Site Utilities Upgrade Project design includes:
- Constructing a new 2,300 seat concrete grandstand and press box. This necessary replacement will bring the nearly 100-year-old facility into compliance with current State and regulatory building and accessibility codes.
- Expand the athletic sports field to create a California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) regulation, synthetic surface track and artificial turf field to support competitive athletic events and daily physical education activities during school.
- Replace two failing storm drain conduits to allow for continued pass through of municipal storm water systems and to mitigate ponding or flooding within the stadium and surrounding residential areas during storm events.
- Modernize and replace the athletic sound and lighting systems for energy efficiency and to mitigate impacts on areas outside of the stadium.
The Peabody Stadium project partners include: Foundation for Santa Barbara High School; Kruger Bensen Ziemer Architects, Inc., Architect; Flowers & Associates, Inc., Civil Engineer; Lundgren Management Corporation, Construction Management; AMG & Associates, Inc., General Contractor; and Knowland Construction Services, Division of State Architect Inspector.
