Crews moving out of Miller building, starting work on addition
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Students will once again be roaming the halls of Miller Middle School when the 2026-27 school year starts on Monday, Aug. 24 amidst the ongoing $106 million Reimagine Miller reconstruction project.
During the regular Monday meeting, Boyd Jones Director of Education Services and Project Executive Mark Pfister told the Marshalltown School Board the building has changed "substantially" since the board's July walk-through.
"The inside now, as we stand today, looks ready for kids to come in there," he said. ". . . It's been a busy summer – lots of stuff done. From the time you guys would have been out there, the new parking lot to the west is finished. The auxiliary gym, the precast was going up when you guys were there last time. . . . The elevator is nearly complete inside the building."
Pfister invited the board members to attend a Tuesday walk-through, and said some work has been done which they will not be able to see, such as rerouting of electrical items and HVAC.
One noticeable difference on the exterior is the main entrance
"That area looks much different now with temporary partition walls," he said. "We're looking forward to getting people back into the building and getting all of our guys out and starting work on the east addition."
Pfister also went through change orders for the auxiliary and competition gym work including floor and bleachers and adding rock to the west parking lot. The board gave approval for all of the orders.
"When I was here last month, I gave some budget pricing for replacing the comp gym floor, so tonight there are two change orders related to that," he said.
To demolish the existing comp gym floor, install the new flooring and relocate accessories, Phillips Floors requested a $241,641 order, which will come from the owner contingency fund. Pfister said Carroll Seating requested a $97,440 change order to add new bleachers to the comp gym to make ADA-improvements, such as adding some handrails and walkways also from owner contingency funds.
The original owner contingency total is $1.4 million and is only minus the change orders the board approved on Monday.
A Con-Struct change order requested $30,446 to add rock to the west parking lot. According to Pfister, there are some bad soils in that area. To the north of the lot, there were areas which were too wet, so they had to add rock. The money will come from the $1.6 million general change allowance.
The last request was from Henkel, and Pfister said there were several issues. In the competition gym, it was identified the floor precast exterior joints should be replaced due to water damage, which costs $7,000. When the aux gym was converted to a storm shelter, double tees were added on the roof, adding to the thickness of wall panels in order to bear the weight. The last request is more cosmetic, he said, to repair a chipped area of the precast corner. The total amount of Henkel's change orders was more than $39,000, which will come from the $2.1 million change allowance fund.
Superintendent Theron Schutte asked Pfister if a lot of contingency depends on soil conditions when there is a project of this nature. Pfister told him they would see more contingency usage in the summer when crews are doing underground work, but assured that there are plans in place and surprises arise.
Board member Leah Stanley said she expects surprises to be discovered earlier rather than later in a project as large as Reimagine Miller.
"Especially with the type of work done this summer with all the demo that happened inside the building," he responded. "We were in the 1925 building this summer, and there's more fun in an older building."
Contact Lana Bradstream at 641-753-6611 ext. 210 or lbradstream@timesrepublican.com.