Mehlville School Board Selects Contractor to Build High School Auditorium

Wright Construction Services, Inc., will build Mehlville High School’s new auditorium, the Mehlville School District’s Board of Education decided at Wednesday night’s meeting.

The board approved the general contractor’s $5,134,000 base bid, which came in under the district’s budget of $6 million. Wright Construction’s bid was the lowest of the 16 the district originally gathered, coming in $182,600 below the bid average.

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“Wright Construction not only was the low bidder but throughout this interview process just came out ahead of everyone with flying colors and made me feel comfortable about my interest and my commitment to this,” said superintendent Eric Knost.

When the vote came in 6-0-1 (Board Member Kathleen Eardley abstained) in favor of Wright Construction, a smattering of applause broke out in the meeting room and hands reached to Tom Wright, president of the contracting company and a St. Louis native, in congratulations.

"To be honest with you," Knost said, "with other contractors, I heard them want to make the commitment. I don’t know that I heard them making the commitment, though, if that makes any sense. There was a lot of “what if” language. Never heard that with Tom (Wright.)"

The bid comes with four “alternative” bids, or add-on projects the district can choose to implement later. Those projects include a connecting corridor between the auditorium and the school, gypsum board in the auditorium, loudspeakers, an audio mixing counsel, a wireless microphone and a backstage TV & Distribution system.

The board decided to delay considering adding those projects—and their costs, which range from $10,000 to $106,000 each—until further along in the construction process in case unforeseen issues drain the district’s contingency fund. If the board decides to approve those projects a few months into construction, it should not add costs or time to the project, said Dwight Dickinson, the architect working to design the auditorium.

"The prudent, fiscal thing to do on a construction project like this with budgets as tight as they are is to make sure you don’t make those decisions until you absolutely have to," Wright said.

Wright Construction currently works with three other St. Louis area school districts: Hazelwood, Kirkwood and Wentzville. Wright Construction is working on a $60 million worth of projects for all three Hazelwood high schools, Wright said.

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