Few construction companies submit proposals for new Socorro High School
When voters passed a Socorro Independent School bond of $448 million dollars last November, the district said it wanted to hit the ground running.
The first project is the reconstruction of Socorro high school with a budget of $135 million. The school is more than fifty years old.
At at a SISD board meeting Tuesday, officials took the first steps toward turning its aging flagship campus into a modern school.
The board members narrowed down the list of architect firms and construction companies for the project.
The board narrowed down a list of 17 architect firms vying for the Socorro high school project. That list is down to five.
But staff did not have such a long list to choose from when it came to construction contractors. There were only a handful of proposals for the $80 or $90 million dollar Socorro high school construction project.
Tom Eyeington is the district’s chief operations officer.
“Yeah, I was a little concerned but that just shows you that there is a lot of work out there that we are competing with right now. So we only had four that applied,” said Eyeington.
The construction competition is coming from other big projects happening in the Borderland including TxDOT and El Paso Independent School District projects.
A new Socorro elementary school in the Pebble Hills area is being built right now for the 18-19 school year to deal with student overflow and growth.
The boundary for that school was approved at Tuesday’s school board meeting and residents have been notified.
The school most effected by the change is Lujan Chavez Elementary which now has some 1,100 students.
The school’s boundary is now smaller.
The bond money will also be used for improvements to Montwood, El Dorado and Americas high schools with an estimated cost of $95.8 million.
Unlike the El Paso Independent School District which is losing students, SISD is planning for an increase in students. The district has 700 more students than it did this time last year.
