State Technical College of Missouri approved $3.5 million in campus construction projects Friday.
The State Tech Board of Regents authorized President Shawn Strong to accept a bid from Verslues Construction Co. Inc. to build the Turf and Grounds Center at the Osage Country Club.
The Turf and Grounds Center will be a 11,200-square-foot steel building with classrooms, offices, a shop, a breakroom, restrooms and utility rooms.
The new building will also serve as part of the country club’s driving range with golfer stalls located at the north end of the driving range tee boxes. Construction plans also include a 1,800-square-foot detached greenhouse.
State Tech took ownership of the Osage Country Club in May 2020 after Mid-America Bank forgave the $200,000 debt on the property.
The college also plans to build a 31,000-square-foot event and entertainment space in a separate project to replace the country club clubhouse.
The college received a total of five bids for the Turf and Grounds Center construction and chose Verslues with a bid of $3,017,400 and a completion date of Aug. 15, 2022.
Verslues, a Jefferson City-based nonresidential building construction company, had the lowest bid, Strong said, as well as a preferable completion date.
He said he originally wanted the project to be completed in April to capitalize on next year’s golf season, but the six to eight months needed for a pre-manufactured metal building set the projected completion date back several months.
“Given that, I think the August timeframe is probably as good as we were going to get,” Strong said. “We had some of them that went all the way out to 2023.”
With the Turf and Grounds Center contract costing just more than $3 million, there’s an additional $482,600 the Board of Regents approved for spending.
Strong said construction plans also include a 6,000-square-foot equipment storage building to replace what’s being taken down by the clubhouse.
The extra funding the Board of Regents approved will go toward constructing the storage facility, as well as clubhouse equipment, academic building furniture and developing the driving range with furniture and an irrigation system.