photo by: Emma Delk

Marshall County Schools Facilities Director Michael Price reviews floor plans for the future John Marshall High School Aquatic Center during a board meeting on Tuesday.

MOUNDSVILLE — Marshall County Board of Education members approved the timeline for advertising John Marshall Aquatic Center contractor bids during their most recent meeting.

The BOE approved the tentative bid advertising date of the $25 million facility for Wednesday, July 16. The bid advertisement will follow a mandatory pre-bid meeting on Wednesday, June 25, at John Marshall High School.

Prospective bidders will receive project drawings and ask MCS officials questions during the meeting to prepare bids over the next three to four weeks. MCS Facilities Director Michael Price said a bid opening date has not been set for the project.

The John Marshall Aquatic Center will be built in collaboration between Marshall County Schools and WVU Medicine Reynolds Memorial Hospital. Omni Architectural and Engineer Services will design the facility, with design and operational consulting from the firm’s aquatics specialist, Counsilman-Hunsaker Aquatics for Life.

Price said the groundbreaking will likely occur in late summer or early fall, and the projected opening date for the aquatic center has not yet been determined.

“We’re still working on the projected opening date,” Price said Tuesday. “I’ll be able to put together a better schedule or timeline after the meeting tonight, and how many contractors we have interested dictates how patient we have to be. We hope for a large number of contractors to be interested so we can have a competitive price for this project.”

In addition to a bid timeline, Price also presented board members with upper and lower level floor plans for the project. The floor plans came with corresponding three-dimensional pictures of the interior and exterior of the building created by Omni Architecture.

Price informed board members that these photos portray the “end game of the design.” He noted that the general programming of the building has largely remained the same since the project was announced in October 2024.

“You can see some different shots of different elevations of the exterior of the building and some interior shots with a floor plan on big, colorful boards,” Price said. “I want everyone to see where we are and how close we are to putting this out to bid.”

The 65,000-square-foot natatorium will contain a competition-sized pool, warm-up pool and quarter-mile indoor walking track. The competition pool will be an eight-lane, 50-meter pool with movable bulkheads to accommodate short-course and long-course events.

Board President John Miller questioned who would maintain the pools’ filtration and climate controls. Price responded that the facility would require a full-time filtration vendor and/or employee.

Superintendent Shelby Haines noted the pool will be large enough to host major swimming events, such as the West Virginia Region 1 Swim Championship and the OVAC Swimming Championship. Price does not believe the state swim championships will be held at the facility due to the event currently being hosted at West Virginia University’s new natatorium.

“We can’t compete with WVU’s natatorium,” Price admitted. “They have twice what we have, but up here in the Northern Panhandle, I think we have a really good shot at getting both the OVACs and the regionals here.”

In response to a question from board member Lori Kestner, Price said the building would contain refreshment areas, including a concession stand that would provide for swim meets and tennis matches.

The building will also contain two classrooms with a dividing wall. When the wall is removed, the classrooms can be combined for a meeting space for up to 60 people.

“We’ve been finalizing the details for the project, which includes moving a thing here or there” Price said. “We’ve been working to design a building that can properly house all of that programming.”

The project’s details also included determining a layout that accommodates WVU Medicine Reynolds Memorial’s needs in the over 8,000 square feet of the facility designated for the hospital.

“We are totally in control of the project and have been working with WVU Reynolds to determine their programming needs,” Price said. “We have to incorporate what they wanted on their section of the building and determine a layout that works with the infrastructure. We’ve had several meetings with them on designing their section, so we’re taking care of the project from start to finish.”

The current BOE voted in 2023 to set aside $15 million of levy funding to ensure the completion of the project. Haines said additional carryover funding has been set aside in the county budget to fund the project once work begins. MCS will also negotiate a long-term lease agreement with WVU Medicine Reynolds so they can pay for their portion of the project.

Price noted that once a bid is in place for the project, the next step will be determining WVU Medicine Reynolds’ square footing cost for construction so the hospital can negotiate a long-term lease.

“Our agreement with WVU Reynolds is a long-term lease agreement that we will use to get our taxpayer dollars back for the project in 15 to 20 years of payments,” Price said. “Once we determine the square footage cost and how much the portion of the WVU Reynolds part of the facility costs us, then we will utilize that number for a long-term lease agreement.”

Another aspect of the facility cost that is still up in the air is how President Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs will impact the project’s final price. Price said this was a “grey area” regarding the project’s cost and added the tariffs created “a little bit of hysteria.”

Price said Omni has helped them create budgets as they work through the project. If the tariffs result in “astronomical per square footage prices,” he said they would “have to reevaluate what we’re doing.”

“There will be a cap on what we can really afford,” Price said. “If there was some kind of astronomical price increase due to tariffs, we might have to look at doing some value engineering for the project.”

Price added that the local contractors MCS frequently works with have “not seemed quite as concerned” about the tariffs as some of the estimators who have performed project valuations.

“We’ll find out what the true nature of the cost is when we put this out to bid. It’s just the way of the world right now,” Price said. “I personally have a great feeling because when I started calling contractors I know to ask them what their gut feeling is about the tariffs they’ve told me, ‘There’s a few items that are up in the air, but it doesn’t seem quite as bad as what the media has made it out to be.’ The tariffs are, of course, a real thing, but I think it’s starting to calm down a little bit.”