HANCOCK — The bids for a new playground are due on May 18, according to Superintendent Steve Patchin, adding that he is looking ahead to see what the costs will look like.

Patchin said a meeting is scheduled to open the sealed bids for Thursday afternoon with Scott Helminen, the project manager with Gundlach Champion. Helminen is the manager leading the project, along with OHM project engineers. The bids are for outdoor projects. Those include the parking lots at both the high school/middle school campus and Barkell Elementary School, as well as pavement removal and replacement at the elementary school.

“A third piece that covers is getting the drainage of the courtyard between the two wings of the elementary school,” Patchin said.

In regards to the new playground equipment, Patchin said four different designs are being considered.

“Our parent/playground committee — we talked with three different playground designers and decided on one designer,” he said. “So the designer has come up with four different options and we’re going to look at those and decide which to go with.”

Once a playground equipment option is chosen, bids will also go out for that project and the new equipment should be installed, tentatively, in the first week of August.

The reason for working directly with a professional playground manufacturer is because they are providing Patchin and the playground committee with scientific reasons for the equipment options they recommended. Each of the options includes equipment for disabled people, Patchin said.

Currently, the plan calls for wood chips to laid beneath the playground equipment.

“Many people go with a cover that’s like a foam rubber-plastic material,” Patchin said. “But because of freezes and thaws, especially with the amount of snow we get, it wears out pretty quickly and it also takes a fair amount of money to maintain.”

Whether the parking lot projects will be completed this summer or next summer remains a question.

“There are only so many contractors here that do type of work,” Patchin said.

In the meantime, however, the bids for the interior work on the Fab Labs and the manufacturing space will go out in July and those projects are scheduled be done before the 2023 Fall Semester begins.