CEDAR FALLS -- If Mother Nature cooperates, work could begin on a nearly $14 million construction and remodeling project at Holmes Junior High by the end of the year.

The Cedar Falls Board of Education Monday unanimously approved the final design documents for the project and set a 7 p.m. Dec. 8 public hearing. Board member Joyce Coil was not at the meeting.

Bids are then expected to be received Dec. 9 and the project awarded at a special meeting Dec. 15. Construction on the first phase of the project could begin as early as Dec. 22.

Dale Port, of Struxture Architects, said the first piece of the project -- a new drive and parking lot, family and consumer science classrooms and a new mechanical room for the geothermal heating system -- must be ready when school begins in August.

With those classrooms open, administrators can move their offices into the existing family and consumer science rooms while work is started on the new administration offices and media center. The existing administration area, weight room and wrestling room will be updated into a new media center and two new computer labs.

The timeline then has work on the new gym, platform stage and wrestling room completed by mid-October.

"They will be without any gym space for the first few months of school," Port said.

The existing gym will be partitioned into four classrooms so work updating existing classrooms can continue throughout the school year, he said. Those classrooms will all be hooked into the building's new geothermal system and upgraded for technology components.

During -summer 2010, the school's kitchen and cafeteria will be remodeled. The final piece, installing a new wood floor in the existing gym, is expected to be done before school begins in 2010.

Port said several alternatives have been added to the bid, some of which would increase the cost of the project and others that would allow for a cost savings. Among the options are upgraded roofing materials that would increase the warranty from 20 years to 25 to 30 years and adding a scoreboard and controls to the gymnasium. Cost-saving measures include removing the upper rows of storage cabinets from classrooms and the skylights from the media center.

Doug Nefzger, the district's director of business affairs, also asked to include an emergency panel and generator switch that would allow the school to open as a shelter during disasters. Generator power would not be able to sustain the entire school, but could provide enough energy to maintain living conditions in parts of the building.

"After the events in this community last summer, there is only one building that can continue to operate like this during a loss of power and that is the West Gym," he said. "We could have the National Guard bring in emergency generators to use in a time of disaster. But, if the cost overruns, this is something we could look at taking out."

A similar construction and renovation project, totaling about $14 million, is set to begin at Peet Junior High next spring.

The board will hear updated financial information from Larry Burger of Speer Financial during its regular meeting on Nov. 24. In July the board approved the sale of $10 million in bond anticipation notes when the construction projects kicked-off. The $10 million is expected to jump start the cash flow until the district can sell a revenue bond for about $17.5 million in two years. That amount will continue to be in flux as the state's sales tax receipts increase or decrease. The district also will use cash on hand and incoming local option tax money to fund the projects.

Contact Emily Christensen at (319) 291-1570 or emily.christensen@wcfcourier.com.