Construction will get underway soon on a planned $21 million renovation and expansion of Mount Nittany Elementary School following action by the State College Area School Board on Monday night.
The board unanimously approved base bids and several alternate bids for the project, which will add a new wing and is primarily intended to alleviate capacity issues at the 13-year-old school in College Township.
Work is expected to begin as early as January and be completed by the start of the 2026-27 school year.
Base bids for the project totaled $21,052,700:
- General – eciConstruction, $13,670,000
- HVAC – Silvertip, Inc., $3,278,000
- Plumbing – Silvertip, Inc., $920,700
- Electrical – Lecce Electric, Inc., $3,184,000
Three alternate bids amounting to $301,900 were also approved for an outdoor storage structure, sod athletic field and a condition for contractors to be responsible if they encounter any rock, no matter how much, during excavation and foundation work.
A fourth alternate to extend the school’s current automation system results in a reduction of $106,300 from the base bid total.
A solar array included in the base bid will cost $380,580, but about 30% of that is expected to come from Inflation Reduction Act funding, and the district may receive another 30% of the cost from the state Department of Community and Economic Development’s Solar for Schools Grant Program. If funds from both are awarded, the district’s cost for the array will be $152,232.
Supplying about 1% of the district’s electricity, the array would have a 30-year lifespan and SCASD would see payback by year 11, Director of Physical Plant Mike Fisher told the board. The district may also sell surplus solar power from it accrues from the multi-agency Solar Power Purchase Agreement cooperative to help recoup costs.
The total budget for the Mount Nittany Elementary project is $20,946,400, including financing, architectural, contingency, testing, inspection, regulatory and commissioning costs. Capital reserves and bond financing will fund the project, and the district will seek $1.1 million in reimbursements from Inflation Reduction Act funding upon completion.
Plans include 36,627 square feet of additions and 2,939 square feet of renovations.
The project will add six classrooms, special education rooms, a large group instruction room, STEM and music room and a dedicated cafeteria. Work also will include a bus drop-off loop and parking lot accessible from the existing parking area shared with Mount Nittany Middle School, a new main entrance and playing fields on the east side of the building.
With a student capacity of about 450, Mount Nittany Elementary’s 18 existing classrooms are typically at full use, and in recent years that has necessitated moving two fifth-grade classrooms to the nearby Panorama Village building.
It was the only of the district’s eight elementary schools identified as having immediate capacity concerns that need to be addressed, based on an analysis of enrollment trends and projections over 10 years conducted by Crabtree Rohrbaugh, with additional projections provided by school enrollment analytics firm DecisionInsite.
