Ledyard — The building committee approved plans for the town's $65 million school renovation project Monday night, passing them to the Board of Education for their possible approval Wednesday.

The project will renovate-as-new Ledyard Middle School and the Gallup Hill School elementary school, and demolish Ledyard Center School.

Gallup Hill School will absorb additional elementary students in an expansion that will bring the 40,000-square-foot facility to around 86,500 square feet, while Ledyard Middle School will be expanded from 75,000 square feet to around 93,000 square feet to accomodate sixth-grade students.

The two boards will hold a joint meeting Wednesday night to discuss the latest set of construction documents produced by Silver + Petrucelli and Associates. The documents still need to go through the complete local review process, which includes compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act and inspection by the building official, fire marshal and health district.

Building committee members hope to send the project out to bid in January.

During the Monday meeting of the Permanent Municipal Building Committee, senior project managers of the project's construction manager O&G Industries, Dan Hetules and Mike Brennen, presented their final recommendations to the board.

Using numbers from recent bids on a school construction project in Colchester as a guide, Hetules and Brennen said that bids on several parts of the project were lower than expected, leading them to reduce their estimate on parts of Ledyard's project by about 5 percent.

The Permanent Municipal Building Committee has kept a careful eye on costs during the construction planning phase since estimates for Ledyard Middle School trended higher than its budget.

In constructing its budget and bid package, the building committee doubled its contingency funding from 2 percent to 4 percent, rather than cover the total estimated deficit for professional services, which O&G put at $1.3 million.

To address the shortfall and arrive at a balanced budget, the committee selected several "alternates," or optional features that could be eliminated if bids on the project came in too high. Those include chillers for the school air conditioning system and patterned tile; cutting those items would bring the project well under budget.

Cutting items from bids at this stage doesn't necessarily mean they will be left out of the project. Hetules and Brennen explained that the goal of this process is simply to ensure that the project comes in under budget and they could continue on schedule, since delays would be more expensive.

Once each phase of the project ends, any leftover funds could be used to add the eliminated items back in. For example, money left over from the design phase could be applied back into the project in later phases.

Alternates "(give) us flexibility later if needed," committee Chairman Steven Juskiewitz said, noting the school project was in the same position as the new police station when it went out to bid, which included four alternates that later were built.

The committee also plans to move money from the Gallup Hill project, which is running under budget, to the middle school project, Juskiewitz said.

Superintendent of Schools Jay Hartling, who attended Monday's meeting, said he was "excited to see the numbers came in competitive" and said the education board was looking forward to reviewing the plans.

The joint meeting between the Permanent Municipal Building Committee and the education board will take place at 7 p.m. in the Ledyard High School media center.

n.lynch@theday.com