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Highland High bid far above estimates; district negotiates to reduce gap
Summary
Construction bids for Highland High came in roughly $25M over the estimate; administrators said negotiated value‑engineering has reduced the gap to about $17M and identified scope adjustments (skylights, tile sizes) and timeline options for ground‑source heat pump work.
The Salt Lake City School District construction manager told the board Aug. 4 that Highland High School's contractor bid came in about $25 million over the project's original estimate. District and contractor negotiations trimmed the overage, and staff reported the latest projection is roughly $17 million above the initial budget estimate.
Program manager Isaac Gastel said the reductions were achieved through scope and specification adjustments — for example, using different skylight sizes and a standardized tile finish rather than lower quality finishes. He highlighted one major driver: a ground‑source heat pump component that, when the project schedule was shortened to avoid removing baseball/softball fields for more than a season, increased that portion of the bid by about $22 million compared with earlier preliminary estimates. Gastel said some schedule flexibility (an extra season and a half) could reduce that line item by roughly $2 million.
"The bid came in just under $25,000,000 over budget for Highland High School," Gastel told trustees, adding that changes to finishes and timing have brought the overage down to around $17,000,000. Trustees asked for clarity about when taxpayers will begin to pay bond tranches and how additional tranches will affect future tax rates; finance staff said the district sold the first roughly $140 million tranche in spring 2025 and taxpayers are currently paying on that tranche.
