Source: Rhino Times Greensboro

McNair to Open

by Paul C. Clark

January 17, 2013

The new $25 million McNair Elementary School at 4603 Yanceyville Road in Brown Summit will open in the first week of February, according to Guilford County Schools Executive Director of Facilities Management Robert Melton.

McNair was originally scheduled to be completed by July 18, 2012, in time for students to start the school year at the end of August 2012, but the project by early summer was obviously running behind schedule. Guilford County Schools administrators blamed the delay on the contractor, Farley Associates Inc. of Indian Land, South Carolina, which they said hadn’t paid all its subcontractors on the project.

The McNair construction project was taken over by the surety or bonding company for Farley Associates, The Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. In September 2012, Hartford chose JE Dunn Construction Co., headquartered in Kansas City, Missouri, as the new construction manager for McNair. JE Dunn is the sixth largest construction company in the United States, so Hartford Financial Services Group wasn’t messing around.

After the construction delay at McNair, Guilford County Schools sent students assigned to the school for kindergarten and first grade to Brightwood Elementary School and third, fourth and fifth graders to Jesse Wharton Elementary School. Second graders, English as a second language and special-education students were split between the two schools.

Melton on Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2012 told the Guilford County Board of Education’s Construction Advisory Committee that things went well after JE Dunn took over the project.

“We’re about to move into McNair, which has been an ongoing process,” Melton said. “JE Dunn has been doing an excellent job moving the project forward. It didn’t cost Guilford County Schools any additional money. Any additional costs will be carried by the bonding company.”

McNair, originally known by the project name Northern Greensboro Elementary School, was sold during the run-up to the 2008 bond referendum as a 700-student school for students in kindergarten through fifth grade that would draw students from Jesse Wharton and Brightwood elementary schools. Northern Elementary was added as a third source for McNair students at some point after 2008.

Ironically, almost no one wanted to send their children to McNair, despite the fact that it would be a shiny new school that is well equipped and in a beautiful setting. The opposition to the school board’s attendance zone plans for McNair was led by parents of Jesse Wharton students, who said they were happy with the services and the sense of community at Jesse Wharton, which serves many immigrant students.

Guilford County Schools Construction Advisory Committee member Gary Swing, who is on the building advisory team for McNair, said the ribbon cutting for the new school will be held at 10 a.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2012. He said that McNair Principal George Boschini, formerly the principal of General Greene Elementary, plans to involve many students in the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

“This is good news,” said fellow committee member Gary Paul Kane. “Also, the lack of additional cost is amazing, given that you had to have a bonding company come in.”

Melton replied, “They had a lot on the line.”

The McNair project is one of two Guilford County Schools construction projects now behind schedule and taken over by bonding companies. The other is a $5.3 million renovation of the gym and minor upgrades at High Point Central High School.

Melton told the committee members that there was little new to report on the High Point Central project, which school board Chairman Alan Duncan has called a train wreck. Melton said Guilford County Schools Facilities Department administrators are meeting with the bonding company on the project weekly to try to speed construction.

On Nov. 8, 2011, the school board voted unanimously to terminate its contract with Miles Builders of Charlotte, the main contractor on the High Point Central project, which had fallen more than a month behind. The school board claimed that Miles Builders has violated the contract in multiple ways, including falling months behind schedule and not paying subcontractors on time.

In April 2012, the bonding company on the project hired KMD Construction LLC of Salisbury to take over the project.

In September 2012, HH Architecture of Raleigh, the architect on the project, wrote Kyle Davis, the owner of KMD Construction and the general contractor, claiming numerous elements of the gym project were behind schedule and that the gym might not be finished by the contract deadline, which was then Nov. 14, 2012.

The deadline for the High Point Central project was pushed back numerous times, and more and more High Point Central Bison boys varsity basketball games were scheduled at other schools, until Guilford County Schools on Dec. 4, 2012, again pushed back the completion date by at least a month, and all Bison home games for the year were moved to other schools.

The school board recently voted to replace the entire wooden gym floor at High Point Central, rather than patching it. Melton said that work will be done this summer and will take eight to 10 weeks.