Spokane Public Schools has accepted a $6.1 million bid from Meridian Construction Inc., of Spokane Valley, to build a gymnasium at Salk Middle School, on Spokane’s North Side, says Greg Brown, the district’s director of capital projects. The total project is budgeted at $14.5 million. 

The 32,000-square-foot, two-level gymnasium and fitness facility will be a freestanding building on the middle school campus, at 6411 N. Alberta. The new facility is to have about 14,000 square feet of floor space more than the school’s current gym. The new gym will be built on the southwest corner of the property next to the existing building. 

Meridian’s bid was the lowest of 10 bidders for the contract and came in well under the $7.6 million amount budgeted for the construction project. Swank Enterprises, of Kalispell, Mont., came in with the highest bid at $500,000 more than Meridian. T.W. Clark Construction LLC, of Spokane, placed the second lowest bid.  

Mark D’Agostino, president of Meridian Construction, says the company expects to start work this month, and the project is expected to be mostly completed by December 2014. 

The contract represents about 27,000 man hours for the company, he says.

“We have a great team of subcontractors,” says D’Agostino. 

Robert Frazier will be Meridian’s project manager on this project. Subcontractors for the project include: Sellers Masonry Inc., of Spokane Valley; Agee Electric, of Greenacres; Apollo Mechanical Contractors, of Kennewick, Wash.; Ground Force Manufacturing, of Post Falls; and Professional Piping Inc., of Spokane Valley, among others. 

Funds to replace the gymnasium came from the district’s $288 million bond measure that voters passed in 2009. 

Salk Middle School opened in 1961 in northwest Spokane, on the northwest corner of Alberta and Francis, and hasn’t undergone any major renovations or upgrades since it was built. The school serves approximately 730 students in grades seven and eight. 

NAC|Architecture, of Spokane, is the architect on the project. 

Brown, in an earlier Journal of Business story, said the firm the district selects to design the new gymnasium will also be contracted to design and engineer a master plan that will be used when the district replaces the rest of the school. 

The district plans to include funding for that project in its next bond request, which is scheduled to be presented to voters in 2015. 

Meridian’s other current projects include a $4.5 million contract to remodel a former Harley-Davidson dealership building into a regional animal control center for the Spokane County Regional Animal Protection Service (SCRAPS), in Spokane Valley, and two multitenant commercial buildings at the CrossRoads Coeur d’ Alene retail center, in northwest Coeur d’ Alene.