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Consultants outline $687.4 million in near-term maintenance and capacity needs; board asks auditors to re-check facility counts
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Summary
Consultants told the Lexington County School District One board that near-term roof, HVAC and targeted capacity projects across clusters total roughly $687.4 million in preliminary pro formas; the board pressed consultants to reconcile mismatched instance counts in the detailed facility assessment and requested follow-up data.
Consultants from the facilities team presented a districtwide maintenance and growth-capacity plan that places priority roof and HVAC work and selected additions on a 1–5 year timeline and offered a preliminary aggregate cost estimate of $687,400,000 for the work discussed at the workshop.
The presenter said the team physically inspected nearly 4,000,000 square feet of district property, geolocated deficiencies on floor plans, and scored components on a 1–5 scale, with 1 indicating critical items and 5 indicating like-new condition. The presentation grouped projects by school cluster — Gilbert, Pellon, White/White Knoll, River Bluff and Lexington — and highlighted recurring big-ticket needs such as roof replacements, rooftop unit and HVAC work, site and car-loop changes, and athletic upgrades.
Specific recommendations included repurposing or partial demolition in some locations (the Old Pellon Bridal campus was noted as being "in flux" with portions recommended for demolition and other parts saved for reuse), targeted academic additions where heat‑maps indicated capacity shortfalls, and combining major work (for example roof replacements) into single-campus contracts to limit total escalation.
Board members pointed to apparent data inconsistencies in the consultants' materials. One board member noted that a slide for Southlake Elementary listed 61 instances of items rated 1–3 while a consultant's manual count showed 21; the presenter responded that the long report is pulled from Launchpad and Power BI extracts and acknowledged those tallies can sometimes mismatch. The presenter said their data analyst would re-check the spreadsheets and the Launchpad export and report back to the board.
When asked about capacity calculations at Pleasant Hill Elementary, consultants explained that different definitions were in play: a building-envelope or "building" capacity (presented as 680) excludes portables, while a core-capacity submission to the State Department reflected the building plus 24 portables calculated at 20 students each (totaling 1,160). Consultants recommended the board and staff reconcile demographer figures and the consulting team will follow up offline.
On timing, consultants said near-term roofing and HVAC projects were placed on the first years of a schedule that also accommodates growth projects; the schedule includes design, market solicitation/contract negotiation windows and construction durations and incorporates escalation assumptions drawn from industry indices. A consultant cautioned that slide-level costs are preliminary, built on construction-manager-style pricing that includes contingency, bonds and allowances for owner-paid soft costs, and can change as scope and scheduling choices are finalized.
The presentation also included a pro forma figure of $94,800,000 for a proposed new Lexington technology center program in one scenario; consultants noted a technology center would generally be cheaper than a full high school because it omits athletic and performing-arts scopes. Consultants said land-acquisition assumptions were included as owner soft costs where staff recommended purchasing property.
Next steps: the consulting team will deliver a formal written report to the board at the March 24 regular meeting and will re-check and correct any tally or Launchpad export discrepancies; the board will consider the consultants' refined costs and timelines as staff develops financing and prioritization options.
