HAMLET — The Richmond County Board of Education this month began outlining next steps for the replacement of L.J. Bell Elementary after the district was awarded a $42 million state grant for the project.
Richmond County Schools announced last month it had been awarded funding through North Carolina’s Needs-Based Public School Capital Fund to construct a new elementary school for L.J. Bell. During the school board meeting, district leaders and consultants reviewed early decisions required to move the project forward.
The existing L.J. Bell Elementary, originally built in 1952, has aging mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems that have exceeded their expected lifecycle.
Before applying for the grant, architects and engineers from Moseley worked with the district to evaluate several elementary schools to determine the greatest need. After reviewing building systems and instructional spaces, L.J. Bell was selected for replacement. The new school will be constructed on the existing site.
Ashley Dennis, managing principal at Moseley, presented an overview of the project timeline and initial decisions facing the board, noting the significance of the grant award.
“The very first step is really congratulations to you as a board, to you as a community. This is huge news to be awarded this grant and it creates endless possibilities for Richmond County Schools and L.J. Bell.”
Dennis said the board’s first formal decision will be selecting a project delivery method, which determines how designers and contractors are selected.
“Why that is important is you have to make this decision because then your second step is going to be issuing RFPs (Request for Proposal) or RFQs (Request for Qualifications) to select either your designer or your design-build team… The general statutes and your policies require you to make that decision before that next step starts. Those RFPs and RFQs are very different on what delivery methods are out there. I know that your board council has provided information.”
Dennis said selecting a delivery method early helps maintain the project timeline.
“When you issue for a designer, and then a CM at risk or construction manager at risk, there’s not a lot of going back if you decided to go a different direction. If you decided to go with a design build direction because then you would basically have to cancel those and then move forward with a different one because in a design build, your designer and your contractor are coming to the table together and so those two RFPs are different and that is the reasons that these two steps are important in sequence.”
Once a delivery method is selected, the district would move into issuing RFPs or RFQs and later awarding the project, a process Dennis said requires time to allow firms to prepare complete responses.
“When you issue those RFPs or RFQs… there is a time with that. You have to have them out for a while. You can’t just issue them the next day, request them because there’s time for all parties to put information together. You want groups like your designers and your contractors taking time and being thoughtful about what they’re putting together so they can answer your questions and gives you information that allows you to make educated decisions on who you bring to the table. You may decide that you want to interview… so that’s going to take time to do that as well. That’s why that duration probably pushes you into March time period of 2026.”
According to Dennis’ proposed timeline, design work would begin in March 2026 and conclude by March 2027.
“As we’ve talked before, with a project this size, your design is probably going to be a 12-month duration… that will put you into that March 2027,” Dennis said.
Dennis also emphasized the importance of completing the project ahead of the school year to allow staff time to prepare for the transition.
“Making sure that the school is ready when the yellow buses run is the most important thing,” Dennis said. “When we have the duration of design and duration of construction, you’re wanting to make sure that we have everything ready so that it’s actually ready a little bit before so you have time to put furniture in and have time for teachers to get acclimated, the principal to get back into figuring out where everything is and how things are going to run on the daily– all of those things need to happen, it’s unfair to turn a school over the day it opens.”