GUILFORD, IN — The Sunman-Dearborn School Board has awarded the bid to demolish the former North Dearborn Elementary building to Woodridge Construction.
The New Albany-based company submitted the winning bid of $283,474.
“We estimated, with our architects and engineers, that they would be somewhere in the $400,000 to $500,000 range, so it was considerably below that,” said Sunman-Dearborn Schools Superintendent Dr. Andrew Jackson. “We ended up getting about 12 bids that came in, so we had a lot of bidders, as well.”
Dr. Jackson says another factor in the board’s decision to move ahead with the bid award came after another delay on a grant from the State of Indiana’s Office of Community and Rural Affairs (OCRA).
The OCRA grant money would have been used to defray most of the demolition expenses, but after the latest delay, the school board decided to withdraw its application.
The removal of contents inside the vacant building and asbestos abatement is expected to take place in the next four to six weeks.
“And then we expect that the demolition will likely start in late to mid-October,'” Dr. Jackson added.
The building, which originally housed North Dearborn High School before consolidation, was closed in 2015 due to declining enrollment.
North Dearborn Elementary is now located in the former Sunman-Dearborn Intermediate School building on Sawmill Road off State Road 1 in St. Leon.
