Workers from Hebert Construction of Sioux City tear down a house at 2934 Jones St. in Sioux City on Thursday. The school district has bought the last of eight homes needed for planned reconstruction of Bryant Elementary School.
Tim Hynds, Sioux City Journal
An architect's rendering of the planned new Bryant Elementary School.
Rendering by Cannon Moss Brygger Architects
A schematic for the new Bryant Elementary School is shown. The school is scheduled to open in 2019.
SIOUX CITY | Plans for the new Bryant Elementary school are being solidified as the grounds begin to take shape.
The Sioux City School District has acquired eight homes surrounding the current Bryan Elementary. The first homes were demolished in October.
In order to replace the aging school, the district in 2014 settled on a plan to build a new, expanded Bryant at its current site, 821 30th St. Buying the eight properties and demolishing the houses will provide a bigger footprint for the facility.
The home purchases would expand the site from 2.5 acres to 4.1 acres.
Unlike the new one-level Loess Hills Elementary, which opened in 2014, the new Bryant will be three stories tall. That design kept the required home purchases to a minimum, Superintendent Paul Gausman said.
“It’s roughly the same in square footage, but we are spreading the footprint up,” he said. “We did that because we wanted to have a minimal impact on the size of the footprint in the community.”
In November 2015, the Sioux City School Board advanced plans to get construction on the grounds underway.
At the Nov. 23 meeting, the board approved two plans for bid packages. The first was a $3.1 million plan for reconstruction along 31st, Jones and Jennings streets around the school, demolition of the current Bryant building, site work and construction of retaining walls.
Of the $3.1 million, the city will reimburse $1.22 million for the cost of surrounding street and utility construction, said Brian Fahrendholz, director of operations and maintenance.
A geothermal well project is estimated to cost $660,000.
The bids were awarded in January, with Sioux City Engineering Co. claiming the first bid packages at a cost of $3.3 million. The low bid was slightly over the original estimate of $3.1 million, which Fahrendholz credited to the demand for contractors in the area.
Thorpe Water Development Co. submitted the low bid of $594,339, approximately $60,000 below the estimate presented in November.
The third and final package -- construction of the new building -- will begin after the first two projects are completed.
The entire Bryant project is estimated at $22 million.
See the home purchases for the new Bryant school project.
Workers from Hebert Construction of Sioux City tear down a house at 2934 Jones St. in Sioux City on Thursday. The school district has bought the last of eight homes needed for planned reconstruction of Bryant Elementary School.
