Opening of the Peak Innovation Center early in January; project even out of budget

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The Fort Smith Public Schools Peak Innovation Center will not open in August as originally planned, according to a presentation by HOAR Program Management (HPM) of Dallas, the project manager for district-related construction projects.

Peak Innovation Center will be a regional career and technology center with a focus on innovative teaching strategies within the STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics) disciplines.

Fort Smith voters in May 2018 approved an increase in school mileage, the first in 31 years, increasing the mileage rate at Fort Smith from 36.5 mills to 42 mills. The new rate has been estimated to raise $ 120.822 million, $ 35 million of which will go to district-level security enhancements. The work plan included a new $ 13.724 million career and technology center, now the Peak Innovation Center, with specialized lab spaces and classrooms for healthcare, information technology and advanced manufacturing courses. Educational programs at the center will be available to approximately 43,000 total students from 22 regional school districts; these programs will equip career and college students with real-world skills so they can secure well-paying jobs and / or pursue higher education in their chosen fields.

Scott Ditto with HPM told the FSPS board of directors at a regular board meeting on Monday (June 28) that the project would not be completed in time for the fall semester, which begins on August 16.

In our last meeting, we showed that we would try to partially occupy the building on August 16th. At this point, it has been decided that we probably won’t. We will go ahead and try to complete the entire project before occupying the building. It seemed like it was a better option not to have students around and to have construction workers walking through the main corridors trying to do both sides, Ditto said.

The new employment schedule is scheduled for the start of the spring semester on January 4th. The original construction timeframe for the facility was 470 days. The new timeline has yet to be determined, Ditto said.

Zena Featherston Marshall, executive director of communications and community partnerships at FSPS, said the delays were caused, in part, by the availability of materials and shipping delays which are problems on all types of construction projects underway at national level. These national delays are partly due to the COVID-1 pandemic and partly due to a historic winter storm that hit the region in February. He said other delays came from planning, design, and clearances.

Additionally, changes to the program based on stakeholders making monetary commitments to Peak included required changes in classes and other components, Ditto said.

Production requirements, health (program requirements)… caused some of our delay there. It didn’t affect that much. But the authorization process was also lengthened due to these changes, he said. The expansion of the highway also includes utilities, which pass through our property, and we will need those for our own use before opening.

The school board voted on June 14 to sell 3.36 acres of Peak property to the Arkansas Department of Transportation (ARDOT) in order to expand Highway 255. Deputy Superintendent Martin Mahan said at the time this deal had been running for two years. The selling price was noted at $ 180,525 at Monday’s meeting.

Marshall said Peak programs will begin on schedule in August, though they may need to start at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith if needed and then move to the Peak Building.

Rachel Rodemann Putman, associate director for strategic communications at UAFS, said UAFS has developed dual contingency plans in the event of construction delays or unexpected changes in instructional mode for courses offered at Peak.

First, the university has reserved a space to continue offering in-person courses on our main campus until the Peak Innovation Center is completed and ready for employment. Classrooms, labs, and experiential learning sites are ready for students who signed up for courses in person, and our regional high school students shouldn’t face learning delays from their UAFS instructors, Putman said. Additionally, UAFS professors are ready to provide virtual lectures and assignments as needed should circumstances require the university or its school partners to move to distance learning.

Students attending the center were promised to receive a hands-on approach to career-focused curriculum and programming taught by the UAFS faculty as an extension of the Western Arkansas Technical Center.

UAFS has long prided itself on being an agile and adaptable institution, and during the pandemic we invested heavily in our ability to deliver courses to our students, regardless of the circumstances. Our faculty was trained in providing online courses, we have made significant investments in technology to provide online courses, and we are confident that River Valley high school students will continue to be well served by the Western Arkansas Technical Center and the UAFS. Putman said. .

In addition to not being on schedule, the Peak project is over budget, said FSPS superintendent Dr. Terry Morawski. He also noted that overall mileage-related construction projects are coming to neutral budgets.

The Peak Innovation Center was built from a donated facility at the intersection of Zero Street and Painter Lane east of Fort Smith. In February 2019, William Hutcheson Jr.’s estate donated the former Hutcheson shoe manufacturing building at 5900 Painter Lane to be the Peak site. The 181,710-square-foot building that sits on nearly 17 acres on the corner of Zero Street and Painter Lane saved the district at least $ 3 million that was budgeted to purchase an existing building for the career center.

FSPS has received numerous gifts and grants for the center. Fort Smiths ABB, NEMA Motors Division, announced on May 24 that it would contribute $ 1 million to the project. ArcBest announced on May 7 that it will donate $ 1 million and the centers’ 10,000-square-foot Community Room / Maker Space multipurpose area will be named after the Fort Smith-based shipping and logistics company. Baptist Health-Fort Smith and Mercy Fort Smith announced on February 8 a partnership to invest $ 1 million to $ 500,000 each in health science programming at the center. In January 2020, Governor Asa Hutchinson pledged $ 2.1 million in state funding from the Arkansas Department of Commerce’s Office of Skills Development (OSD) to be used for advanced manufacturing equipment for the center. In September 2019, it was announced that FSPS will receive a $ 1.4 million federal grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration (EDA) to help build the center. In June 2020, the Gene Haas Foundation announced a $ 1 million grant for the expansion of the computer-integrated machine lab at the center.

Ditto said Tuesday of the funding donated for the center, while the EDA grant and money from the property sale to ARDOT went towards construction costs, the state and ABB’s money is just for equipment. Of the $ 1 million Gene Haas Foundation, 70 percent goes to construction and 50 percent of Mercy and Baptist’s funds go to construction, he said. ArcBest funding is for the community room only, and $ 750,000 from the Windgate Foundation is for a visual arts program, he said.

Of the $ 22.15 million in total funding, which includes the $ 13.7 million set aside from the funds for the downtown’s original 55,000-square-foot estimate, $ 17.5 million is earmarked for construction, Ditto said. He said HPM had received the final maximum guaranteed price information from the construction manager of the risky projects, Turn Key Construction Management based in Fort Smith, on Friday and was still checking the information and would be in talks and would have a full cost to bear. soon to the board of directors.

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