The silver lining of a down economy? When the low bid for the new middle school building comes in more than $7 million below the initial estimate of $30 million.

Bids for the new Cole Middle School were opened last week and Gilbane Building Co., one of six prequalified firms who submitted bids, came in with the lowest number, $22.7 million. The next highest bids were in the $24 million to $25 million range.

“This was beyond my expectations,” said Jon Winikur of Strategic Building Solutions, the project manager at an East Greenwich School Committee meeting on Tuesday.

He added, “We knew we were hitting the market at the best time … and that we were the biggest project out there.”

Gilbane, which is headquartered in Rhode Island, is a national company that, according to its website, has done a variety of school projects. Winikur said that a contract would be ready for review by Monday.

In other building news, Winikur said that bids on the high school entrance renovation are due next week. Winikur also addressed the long-lived floor moisture problem at Meadowbrook, saying that SBS wants to monitor the school environment for a whole year before deciding on a course of action.

“We want to make sure we really understand the problem,” Winikur said.

Whatever the solution, he said, it’s going to be extensive. As a consequence, SBS wants to go through each season, since the problem seems to vary depending on the time of year, before deciding on a course of action. 

Building use policy

Also discussed at Tuesday night’s meeting was the revised building use policy.

This was the second attempt by the policy committee to craft a policy that addressed both the fiscal needs of the School Department and low-cost use of school buildings by local groups. The system remains too complicated, committee members said. It will go back to the subcommittee for further revision. Scout groups, however, will not be charged for use of school buildings for after school meetings.

Fields project change orders

The School Committee also approved four change orders totaling $31,000 for the fields construction project last night. Change orders are additional expenses not covered in the original project budget. One of the change orders concerned gates needed for two vehicle points of entry to the field: one by Meadowbrook and the replacement of one off the main high school parking lot. In addition, the committee approved testing expenses incurred by Geyser Engineering; additional construction costs associated with inaccurate existing topographical maps; and a flow test for the irrigation system.

The meeting, which started more than an hour late due to an extended executive session together with the Town Council, marked the return of Council member Paul Martin, who had a stroke last month.