Highland Center Accepting Renovation Bids

The Highland Center is a non-profit community and business incubator located in Monterey. It opened in 1998, in the former Highland Elementary School building, and provides space and services for entrepreneurs, as well as artists and community meetings.

First constructed in 1922, the Center’s home is in need of renovation and refurbishing. A campaign to garner funding to accomplish this has been underway, and now with monetary backing in place, the long awaited construction is about to begin.

Center Community Projects Coordinator Sarah Collins, who has been assisting with coordination of the renovation project, explains.

“As of Saturday, October 25th, we began advertising the bid process. It’s a milestone, and we’re really excited. The Highland Center will be receiving bids at the office of the architect in Harrisonburg, Miller Cupp Associates, through December 16th at 2:00 pm.”

Collins noted that while the bidding process is aimed at selection of a general contractor who can handle a large renovation project, local contractors and tradespeople can take part as well.

“There are opportunities for local contractors who are interested in acting as sub-contractors. Because our project is state and federally funded, we have requirements for numbers of locals employed, so it’s very important that we do find local sub-contractors for some specialties.”

Those areas could include electrical, plumbing, painting, re-finishing floors, metal repair, masonry, and more.

“If you are interested in acting as a sub-contractor or local tradesperson on some of these specialties, we are compiling a list, and we will provide that list to the general contractor for the project during their mandatory pre-bid meeting on Thursday, November 20th. If you’re interested in getting your name and contact information on this list, please contact The Highland Center at 540-468-1922 or highlandcenter@htcnet.org. If you can get us your contact information, name, what specialty you’re interested in by Monday, November 17th, to have that list put together in time for the meeting on Thursday.”

Ms. Collins went on to explain the renovation timeline.

“We are looking at starting construction after Maple Festival 2015. We’re going to start the week following the second weekend of Maple Festival. We anticipate it being completed within 10 to 11 months, so being completed by the end of February of 2016 at the latest.”