With the original bid opening two weeks away and 22 contractors already interested, Palmerton Area School District’s board of directors unanimously voted Tuesday to add a last-minute option to its upcoming major construction package.

The vote directed KCBA Architects and KCE Engineering to modify the bid documents to include a new option, dubbed Alternate Seven, that would allow the board to strip the proposed district administration building from the project entirely.

The move came after a school board workshop in which Jay Clough, project architect from KCBA Architects, told the board the cleanest way to keep its options open was to let the numbers speak for themselves on bid day.

“If you want to kill the (administration office), the easiest and quickest way to do it is make it an alternate and find five people that think it’s a bad idea,” Clough said. “If you do anything less than that, the whole thing isn’t going to work.”

Adding the alternate, Clough added, will not be without financial impact. Clough said the change requires roughly two weeks of revision work at a cost of approximately $25,000 between his firm and KCE. More significantly, it will push the anticipated bid opening back from March 17 to around April 8, with a vote to award contracts possible at the regular April 21 meeting.

“Our (KCBA) contract is fixed with cost, but not when you make those kinds of changes,” Clough said in regard to the added cost coming with the alternate option. “I’m sorry. We just can’t.”

Project details

The estimated $15 million project has been years in the making and has shrunk considerably from its original scope. Site testing added more than $600,000 in unexpected costs due to poor soil conditions and areas of asbestos requiring remediation.

Palmerton directors also voted Tuesday to award the high school asbestos abatement contract to Sargent Enterprises Inc. of Jim Thorpe for $39,812. The facilities debate stretches back to 2023, when the district hired RLPS Architects at a cost of nearly $18,000 to conduct the district’s first facilities feasibility study in roughly 25 years. That study sparked more than a year of contentious public debate over a proposal to realign elementary grades across the district — shifting students based on grade level rather than neighborhood. The board ultimately rejected that approach in April, defeating motions to move sixth grade to the junior high campus, which would have required an additional $27 million in construction, and to pursue a broader K-6 realignment.

The project that remained is a two-story addition to the high school’s east side — which will create a secure entrance, add five classrooms, and house a counselor and nurse’s suite — along with an 11,000-square-foot standalone administration building on the west side of the complex near the high school gymnasium.

District administrators vacated their offices on the third floor of the Parkside Education Center ahead of construction, freeing 7,700 square feet of classroom space, and have been leasing temporary offices at 3295 Forest Inn Road in Lower Towamensing Township for $3,800 per month while the project moves forward.

Delay discussion

The original project mandate, approved by the board last spring, called for both components to be delivered together, with the high school addition targeted for completion by Aug. 15, 2027. Clough said the critical path runs through the summer when underground utilities in the student and staff parking lots need to be relocated.

Clough was direct about the consequences of delay.

“The biggest issue is we’re up against a tight summer start,” he said, adding that the project is already halfway through the bidding process with 22 firms having paid for drawings. “The contractors that build public schools fill up their queue, and you get less competition as it gets later into the year.”

He also pushed back on the idea of halting the land development process.

“You restart the land development process — it’s game over,” Clough said. “I’m telling you, it’s two years to get a permit again.”

Clough was careful to frame his role.

“We are where we are because we followed the direction given to us in April (2025),” he said. “I’m going to leave this room with whatever you tell me tonight.”

Land development approvals will not be affected by Tuesday’s motion. Eric Snyder of KCE Engineering told the board a state stormwater permit is on a regulator’s desk and expected within 30 to 45 days, after which township approvals would follow. Both permits are valid for five years.

“To stop that process now, when we’re getting to the doorstep, I think would be a mistake,” Snyder said.

Public comment on the motion drew skepticism.

Terry Kuehner raised concerns about underground mine shafts on the property, saying the district had not properly notified state environmental agencies before proceeding.

“You are dealing with something that’s very serious,” he said, “and to spend taxpayer money to build something over a tunnel is a problem.”

Clough responded to the mine shaft concern directly.

“We were out here all summer in three different shifts, with soil borings, with probes,” he said. “There’s a soil report from a geotechnical engineer that you guys paid for. It’s about an inch thick. It’s in the bid document.”

Clough acknowledged the engineer identified soft soils on the proposed district administration building site but drew a distinction.

“We have some soft soils — that’s not the same as a tunnel,” he said. “That’s the first question I asked: Is this thing going to stand up or is it going to fall down?”

Resident Ken Sutton urged the board not to feel rushed.

“You guys got to do the right thing for this district, not be pressured by somebody that you are paying,” Sutton said, referring to Clough. “He’s working for us. We don’t have the tax base here to justify what we want to spend here.”

A pre-bid meeting with contractors is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. Thursday in the junior high school cafeteria.