San Benito school board picks new site for performing arts center

San Benito’s first performing arts theater will stand near Veterans Memorial Academy.

After last month’s decision to move the location of a $40 million bond-funded construction project from its three-year site off Interstate 69, board members are planning to hire a contractor to build the school district’s fine arts center on about five acres of a 27-acre tract near the ninth-grade campus at 2115 N. Williams Road.

“There are a lot of great attributes that exist there,” board President Orlando Lopez said in an interview. “There’s the accessibility to the property and there’s already a parking area, so that’s going to cut expenditures. It’s a better location for everyone. It’s going to complement that school.”

The site also includes utility lines while offering high school students better access to the performing arts center, board member Israel “Buddy” Villarreal said, noting officials route the district’s high school students to the campus.

“I definitely believe it’s a better site,” board member Crystal Hernandez said.

“It will be a smooth transition for high school students to use the facility throughout the day to practice theater arts and band,” she said.

Officials proposed the site based on its accessibility along with cost-savings factors, Superintendent Fred Perez told board members during a meeting.

“We already have a parking lot in that area, we have access to two sides of that campus and a possible access to the back-side road,” he told board members during Wednesday’s meeting.

In the meeting, board members agreed to go out for bids for a contractor, planning to construct the building under a design-build plan.

“This is where the contractor is in charge of all aspects of the build,” Perez said.

A view of San Benito Consolidated Independent School District performing arts center and natatorium facility Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024. (Miguel Roberts | The Brownsville Herald)

While the original project’s blueprints called for a $21.3 million, 68,747-square-foot performing arts theater, officials are planning to work with the new contractor to determine any changes in specifications, Lopez said.

Officials are also planning to work with the contractor to pick a new site for the project’s aquatics center, he said.

Based on the original specifications, officials have been planning to build an $8.8 million, 22,000-square-foot aquatics center featuring a competition swimming pool and a “warm-up” pool.

After a closed-session meeting, board members held off action following an update on pending litigation stemming from the previous contractor’s construction of two buildings they had planned for the performing arts theater and aquatics center.

While officials are planning legal action against some companies that worked on the old project site’s construction, they’ve declined to disclose the companies’ names.

Last month, the school board decided to move the performing arts theater’s project site following about three years of construction, leaving behind two rising structures built for about $12 million at the old site sitting on district property off I-69 near Dr. Raul Garza Elementary School.

While moving to the new site, officials are keeping “millions” of dollars worth of steel, brick and air-conditioning and heating equipment, Lopez said.

“Those are cost-saving measures,” he said. “That should relieve some of the cost.”

Now facing escalated materials’ prices, district officials have offered no projected overall construction cost while giving no timetable.

In January, the school board found the district’s first contractor, San Antonio-based Davila Construction, which launched the project in late 2021, in default of its contract, months after a construction team found foundation flaws leading to a two-year work shutdown.

Last month, the board entered into a settlement with Davila Construction’s insurance company paying $13.3 million to help jump-start the project.

The $13.3 million settlement with the Berkley insurance and surety company covered the district’s payments to Davila Construction, Lopez said.

As part of a contract, Berkley surety bonds protected the district “for the full contract price” of $21.3 million, $8.8 million and $1.8 million in the event Davila Construction defaulted, district officials said in January, referring to the overall project, which included construction of the $21.3 million performing arts theater and the $8.8 million aquatics center.

In turn, the district presented Berkley with a claim for $21.3 million, $8.8 million and $1.8 million, officials said at the time.

In March 2023, then-Superintendent Theresa Servellon, under a previous school board, ordered the construction project halted after architect Mike Allex, with McAllen-based ROFA Architects, reported finding some geopiers, or deeply anchored 2-foot-wide rock columns, misaligned with the buildings’ foundation targets.

For months, Allex and officials with Davila Construction worked to determine repair plans aimed at jump-starting construction.

Then in January, Perez’s office said the team “concluded that the remediation is not prudent or feasible based on the number and the extent of construction discrepancies.”

Since a previous school board proposed the $40 million bond issue in 2018, the construction project has become one of city’s hottest topics.

In 2018, a previous administration pushed for the bond issue to fund construction of the district’s first performing arts theater and aquatics center along with an indoor practice field.

In a heated election, 54% of voters passed the bond issue.

As part of the overall project, district officials set out to build a $21.3 million performing arts theater, an $8.8 million aquatics center and a $5.7 million indoor practice field, which has been completed.

Under a 2019 contract, the district paid the Edinburg-based Brighton Group a $1.25 million fee to serve as project manager based on estimated $30 million construction costs.

In October 2021, Davila Construction launched the project to build the performing arts theater and aquatics center.

By February 2023, the school board was terminating the Brighton Group’s contract without cause, with the construction project about halfway completed, officials said at the time.

At the time, a district report showed Davila Construction was requesting the performing arts theater’s completion date be pushed from July 21 to Dec. 28, 2023, while the aquatics center’s completion date be moved from April 14 to Sept. 19 of that year.

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