VIDALIA — The Concordia Parish School Board accepted the lowest bid Thursday for a new gym at Ferriday Junior High School after $157,198 in construction costs savings were identified.

Members of the school board delayed the approval two weeks ago and asked officials with the firm Barron, Heinberg and Brocato Architects and Engineers of Alexandria to identify cost-cutting measures for the project after cost estimates were higher than anticipated at $2.6 million.

Officials with the company presented school board members with a list of savings that ranged from not including a basketball court floor cover, which saved $16,000, to a change in the ceramic tile for the walls, which saved $3,135.

“My goal in all this was to get the price down below $2.5 million, and we were able to identify some costs that got us below that amount,” Superintendent Paul Nelson said. “There might also be another $10,000 to $20,000 hanging out there we might also be able to cut as well.”

The biggest cost-cutting measure in the project, Nelson said, involved rethinking the heating, ventilation and air (HVAC) conditioning system that would be placed in the gym.

The original plan for the gym called for the HVAC system to be placed on a mezzanine, which would cost $45,000, in the ceiling of the building above the locker rooms.

“The mezzanine was quite expensive because the equipment was so large,” Marion Chaney, a partner at the architecture firm, said. “If we place that outside in what we call a package unit and eliminate the cost of the mezzanine, we can eliminate a lot of that cost.”

Before board members voted, board president Gary Parnham asked director of business affairs Tom O’Neal if he was comfortable with the new price, which was $2,468,402.

“I’m more comfortable at $2.46 (million) than I was at $2.6 (million) because we’re taking this money out of our general operating fund to do this,” O’Neal said. “That’s the same money we pay teachers with and provide all educational services with and that’s my concern.

“What scares me is the fact that we don’t know what’s down the road.”

O’Neal said the cost of building a new gym outweighs the cost of repairing the current gym.

“That gymnasium has to be addressed, so the question is do we really want to spend $3 million and put a Band-Aid on it?” O’Neal said. “The answer would be, ‘No.’”

The motion passed 5-0 with board member Jeffrey Goodman abstaining.

Nelson said he would continue discussions with the architecture firm to move the project forward as quickly as possible.

“We’ve been pushing with the intent that we would be in that building by Aug. 1,” Nelson said. “So we’re hoping that by the end of September we’ll have some ground moving over there and things will be getting ready to start.”