The Tamaqua Area School Board finance committee approved a contract with AEM Architects at its committee meeting on Monday night to pursue bids for securing entryways.

AEM completed a feasibility study of the entire Tamaqua school district in 2020, which was started by the Tamaqua Safety Commission, which suggested a comprehensive evaluation of all district building entryways to help protect students and staff.

“The agreement that we’re having with AEM is to basically secure their services to head through the bid process toward our capital project goals that we have identified thus far,” said Tamaqua Superintendent Ray Kinder. “Their job is to help us to organize them correctly and help us be able to get someone to put out some competitive bids to try to get these things done.”

$6M project

Enhancing security of building entryways has been a major, if not the biggest, priority of the board for a long time. Kinder expects the cost of the project to be far less than the conservative $6 million estimate that was discussed.

“Our hope is that it will come well below $6 million, and our board will have the opportunity to save that money or put it to other projects or some of the other upgrading,” Kinder said.

“I don’t believe that we’re sitting here thinking we’re automatically moving toward this $6 million project. This was again a very conservative, noncompetitive bid number just to use as an estimate.”

The entryway project will be at each school building districtwide - excluding the district office. AEM’s Phil Leinbach said it could take 10-12 months until any construction is done.

Kinder agreed and said to expect it to begin next calendar year, as more planning and organization is necessary from both sides.

“I think it’s more of a 2022 type of project,” said Kinder. “Considering you’re talking about the main entrance and access to your building, it’s not something you want to do with students in the building.”

Despite the large project, the district will not have to pay any massive lump sum up front to begin.

“I think that AEM and our solicitor were able to alleviate the fact that we don’t sign on the line and have to turn over a big check - we’ll be going along with them,” Kinder said.

“If we tell them to stop (at any time), we’ll only owe them for what they’ve already done, which is again, only fair to them.”

The only near-term payment would be an “up to” $10,000 fee, Kinder explained.

“That would be them getting together with us to coordinate more of a planning process,” said Kinder. “It would all depend ­- if it takes us two hours one afternoon, it wouldn’t be close to $10,000. It would be far less. … That’s just a number to say if they have to do more extensive planning with this, here’s a number that it won’t go past.”

The entryway project will not only include security enhancements (alarm systems, etc.), but also ADA-compliance upgrades. There could also be some plumbing and electrical work done during the process.

Pending something unexpected popping up, Kinder said it’ll be up for approval in front of the board at next Monday’s meeting.