Union Leader
12/09/2006
WINDHAM — More than two years after voters approved the money for the town’s first high school, the school board has voted to terminate the contract with its architect.
School board member Barbara Coish said the decision to end the relationship with Team Design was made in late November, but negotiations were not completed until Wednesday.
The 3-2 vote to terminate — with chairman Bruce Anderson, Beth Valentine and Galen Stearns making up the majority — came after bids for the construction of Windham High School ran $12 million over Team Design’s estimates. The overbid has caused a delay of the high school’s completion until the fall of 2009.
The school district’s building committee recommended to the school board in a unanimous vote to discontinue its relationship with the architecture firm, Valentine said.
“It is the board’s position that this is the direction we’re going in,” she said. “It’s a very critical time for all the residents.”
School district officials said the Windham School Board has already entered contract negotiations with a second architectural firm, Lavalee/Brensinger, to complete the plans for Windham High School. The firm has built high schools in Nashua, Bow and Sanborn.
A termination contract signed by school board Chairman Bruce Anderson and Team Design President Daniel Bisson releases both parties from previous contractual agreements and allows the school district to continue to work with architectural design that has been provided.
A clause in the termination agreement prohibits both parties from making negative statements about each other.
As part of the agreement, the school district will pay Team Design for remaining invoices totaling more than $70,000, which is in addition to the $1.9 million that has already been paid.
The Windham School Board has scheduled a public meeting to discuss the recent changes in the high school project at 7 p.m. on Dec. 19 at Town Hall. Representatives of Harvey Construction will be on hand to give the public a detailed plan to complete the high school by September 2009.