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Council Rock awards bids for $30 million Richboro Elementary project

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A long cycle of major construction in the Council Rock School District is entering its final phase.

The school board at its March 16 meeting voted to award bids totaling $27.93 million for a renovation and 10-classroom addition at Richboro Elementary School in Northampton Township.

When adding architectural, engineering and other fees, the total project cost will be somewhere around $30 million, Director of Business Administration Anthony Rapp estimated.

He said work is scheduled to start around July and take a year and a half to complete. During construction, students and staff at Richboro ES will be moved to the nearby vacant Richboro Middle School, which closed in 2018 and has been serving as a temporary home for students and staff at several Council Rock elementary schools while their buildings were being renovated.

In a related move, the board approved a resolution that moves the district forward on floating a bond issue not to exceed $27.5 million that will help pay for the work at Richboro, an ongoing renovation-addition at Sol Feinstone Elementary in Upper Makefield and a recently completed one at Hillcrest ES in Northampton.

In the last several years, Council Rock has completed major renovations-additions at Churchville, Holland, Goodnoe, Wrightstown, Rolling Hills and Hillcrest elementary schools, each costing around $20 million or more. The price tag for the ongoing work at Sol Feinstone is more than $30 million.

In addition, there has been a $52.9 million complete replacement of Newtown Middle School and a $47.9 million renovation-addition of Holland Middle School.

Richboro ES should be the last school to require work on the scale of the other seven elementary schools for several years, Council Rock officials have said.

School board member Bob Hickey, the Northampton Region 3 representative, said at the March 16 meeting that the Richboro Elementary School project is long overdue.

“The Richboro community is not getting its just due in the district, and that’s one of the reasons I ran for school board,” he said. “These students deserve the same quality of education afforded to all. To the Richboro community, you’ve earned this.”

The project is coming at a good time. Council Rock Superintendent Andrew Sanko said enrollment at Richboro ES is projected to grow 14 percent over the next decade.


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