Jackson School Board approves bid for food service equipment

Servco Equipment Co. of St. Louis was chosen as the low bidder to provide food service equipment for Jackson's new elementary school Tuesday night.

The school board approved the bid of $325,447 during a special meeting.

Superintendent Ron Anderson said the food service equipment will include items such as serving and cooking equipment, stoves, ovens, containers, refrigerators and utensils.

Anderson said the general contractor, Brockmiller Construction of Farmington, Mo., is ready to rough out plumbing for the 105,000-square-foot building, so the new food service equipment needs to be in hand.

"You've got to coordinate it. That's the key," Anderson said.

The elementary school will sit on 15 acres at 455 N. Lacey St. The project architect is Warner Nease Bost Architects Inc. of Kansas City, Mo.

Construction is being financed with a bond of about $16 million that was approved by voters April 3, 2012.

Other bidders were Boelter Contract & Design, headquartered in Waukesha, Wis., $330,027; Edward Don & Co. of North Riverside, Ill., $332,365; and Ford Hotel Supply Co. of St. Louis, $387,868.

In other business Tuesday, the board approved John N. Thompson, president of First Midwest Bank in Jackson, as a director of the Reorganized School District R-II Cape Girardeau County Building Corp.

Thompson replaces John Lorberg, who died about two months ago, Anderson said.

The not-for-profit building corporation, established in 1989, is used for lease-purchase bonds. The facilities financed by the bonds are leased through the corporation back to the school district until the bonds are paid off, Anderson said.

The most recent lease-purchase bonds issued were approved by voters in 2005 to finance the $19.8-million, two-phase addition to Jackson Senior High School.

Work on the high school was completed in 2010, at a total cost of $22.5 million, with the difference covered by interest earned on bonds, Wade Bartels, chief financial officer for the district, told the Southeast Missourian in 2012.

The building corporation has three directors -- Anderson and two community members.

Along with Anderson, directors will now include Thompson and Jan Miller, who Anderson said has been a director since 1989. The building corporation board met and approved a new director, but the choice has to be affirmed by the school board, Anderson said.

rcampbell@semissourian.com

388-3639

Pertinent address:

455 N. Lacey St., Jackson, MO 63755