Surety company evaluating San Benito school district’s $40 million project

An insurance company’s tests at the site of the San Benito school district’s $40 million bond-funded project will help determine when officials will jump-start construction about 16 months after they shut down work.

Berkley Surety, former contractor Davila Construction’s insurance company, is running tests on soil samples the company’s construction consultant and geotechnical engineers took on March 14 and 15 at the project site off Interstate 69, Baltazar Salazar, the district’s Houston-based construction attorney, said Tuesday.

“It’s part of the process,” he said. “This is part of their due diligence.”

In January, board members voted to place Davila Construction, a San Antonio-based contractor, in default of its contract to build a $21.3 million performing arts theater and an $8.8 million aquatics center.

“At some point, in the very near future, they’ll have to make a decision,” Salazar said. “They have to evaluate the work that’s been done and the payments made by the school district and they’re checking to make sure Davila paid the subcontractors. They have been cooperating. We have been cooperating.”

Now, Berkley Surety, Davila’s insurance company, is reviewing the project site, testing soil samples and studying measurements as it works to determine whether district officials will resume construction following a 16-month shutdown.

In March 2023, then-Superintendent Theresa Servellon, under the past 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.

“These tests are to confirm the select fill under the concrete and to confirm the alignment of the concrete with the geopiers,” Salazar said. “The results of the soil samples, measurements and site evaluation should be made available to the SBCISD soon. We’re moving forward.”

For weeks, Salazar’s stressed the school district is “heavily insured,” with payment bonds and performance bonds while the project’s bond money “is protected.”

“The SBCISD board continues to cooperate with Berkley Surety to move this project forward and will keep the SBCISD community updated as soon as the new geotechnical results are shared with the SBCISD,” Salazar said in a statement.

Construction is halted Tuesday, April 18, 2023, at the site of SBCISD’s future Performing Arts Center and Natatorium Facility in San Benito. (Denise Cathey/The Brownsville Herald)

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

In 2018, a previous administration pushed for the bond issue to fund construction of the $21.3 million performing arts theater, the $8.8 million aquatics center and a $5.7 million indoor practice field, which has been completed.

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

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

In February 2023, before officials shut down the construction project, a district report showed Davila Construction was requesting the performing arts theater’s completion date be pushed from July 21 to Dec. 28 while the aquatics center’s completion date be changed from April 14 to Sept. 19.

Officials haven’t announced a new timetable.

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