MASON CITY – The Mason City High School renovation is wrapping up and the mobile classrooms used for eighth graders in Mason City are headed out of town.
The classrooms were used over the past couple of years as John Adams Middle School and then Mason City High School were fully renovated. For the 2011-2012 and 2012-2o13 school years, eighth grade students attended class in the “annex mobiles” which were located south of Mohawk Stadium on a temporary basis.
“The Annex mobiles are on the way to new locations in state and outside the state,” Mason City School District Superintendent Anita Micich said. “These (mobile classrooms) were on a lease agreement with the district and are not district owned property. These portable classrooms served a great purpose for our 8th grade students and staff for these past two years during the renovation/construction project on the secondary campus.”
The mobile classrooms cost the Mason City School District $396,522 to lease, district administrators said, plus other undisclosed costs to set up and take down. The set up construction costs for the annex was included in the Holland contract; the removal costs for the annex will be done as a change order on the Dean Snyder contract which they are in the process of removing this week.
For the 2011-2012 and 2012-2o13 school years, seventh graders were sent to the former Madison Elementary School. The building was used as a “swing school” and was known as John Adams Middle School 7th. The future of that building is now up in the air. Eighth graders were in the mobile classrooms over that time, while High School students stayed in the High School for the 2011-2012 school year and then were in John Adams as the High School renovation was completed.
In 2011, the Mason City School Board selected the low bid of $8,758,000.00 from Henkel Construction of Mason City to renovate John Adms Middle School. The total cost turned out to be $9,315,000 after change orders, district administrators said this week. The High School renovation (that is not quite complete) cost $8,550,000 so far. The FEMA safe room cost $3,428,000.
The total costs for the renovation at the JAMS / MCHS campus is $34,845,300.
“It has been an exciting project and has greatly improved the learning environment for our Mason City students and has significantly updated these buildings for the next 50 years,” said Ramona Jeffrey, School District Finance Officer.
