A new elementary school Warren County Public Schools hopes to complete by August 2018 now has an official architect firm to design it.
Board members unanimously voted Thursday to name Lexington-based Sherman Carter Barnhart as that firm. Member Don Basham didn’t attend the meeting.
Board Chairman Kerry Young said the firm stood out for its “proven” record of energy efficiency in its designs. Young said the firm has designed energy-efficient buildings “to a point that that savings in comparison is like as much as a teacher to two teachers a year.”
The firm is already saving the district money on energy bills, Young said, adding that saving money on energy and putting it into instruction was something he considered seriously.
“I looked a lot at the buildings that they’ve done for us,” he said. “They’re safe buildings … and they’re great education buildings, too.”
Young said the next step is to set up a design team made up of numerous people in the district. He said the district could decide to go with a design the firm has already used either in the district or elsewhere.
“One, it’s gonna help us in time, and two, it’s gonna help us in the cost of the architect fee,” he said.
The district is on a tight schedule, Young said, but it doesn’t plan on cutting corners. The plan is to finalize the design, get needed permissions from the state and bid the project to contractors sometime around February or March in an effort to break ground around March or April.
