Brookfield Board of Education has awarded a contract for the renovation of the former Tiffany’s building to a company that is literally right around the corner, United Contractors Inc. of Brookfield.
UCI won the highly sought-after project with a bid of $1,269,000, one of 13 bids submitted. Most of the bids were below the engineer’s estimate of $1.7 million.
One firm submitted a lower bid, $229,000, but withdrew it because the figure was a typographical error, school officials said. It was supposed to read $2,229,000, they said. The other bids ranged from $1,287,333 to $2,590,000, and three of them came from other Brookfield contractors.
The school district bought the former banquet center earlier this year to convert it to a career and technical education center and community center. Work should begin at any time, officials said.
“The bid process worked just the way it should,” school Treasurer Jordan Weber told the board Dec. 17. “Our architect said that was the most bids he had ever seen for any project.”
The project was attractive because the work is all indoors at a time when very little outside work can be done, and is being commissioned by a school district, which reliably pays its bills, officials said.
The construction end date is June 26 and the building should be operational by the time school starts again next August. The interior demolition has already been performed by another contractor.
“It’s pretty much an empty building, so we’re hopeful there’s not too many surprises,” Weber said.
“It should be done in June, and then we’d be able to move stuff over in summer, get set up, do a ribbon-cutting in August,” said Supt. Toby Gibson.
The district plans to move its building trades, robotics, Career-Based Intervention and online academy programs into the building, and house the community liaison and food pantry there. All of these programs are currently housed in the main school campus, across Bedford Road from the Tiffany’s building. Space also is being set aside for a senior center to be run by SCOPE Senior Services, which runs several senior centers in Trumbull County.
School board member Melissa Sydlowski abstained from the vote to award the contract because her brother, Christopher Mills, is a partner in UCI.
