POLAND – Construction started Monday on Poland’s approximately $2 million public works project, which includes the School Union 29 administration office.

If everything goes according to plan, the tri-town administrative staff can move into its new quarters in February, said project consultant and engineer Mark Gray.

Even though the bid for the office portion of the four-part project came in higher than the $250,000 approved by voters in Minot, Mechanic Falls and Poland, the cost of not accepting the contract would prove more expensive, said Ike Levine, chairman of the Poland School Committee.

“We’re hoping that Minot and Mechanic Falls will agree that it was in everyone’s best interest to go ahead with the contract,” said Levine. “If we didn’t go ahead, we would risk losing some $88,000 in state subsidies.”

The overall contractor’s total came in at $2.1 million. The town had budgeted $2.46 million, and the town has raised $2.3 million from three different sources, Gray said.

Poland’s selectmen recently awarded the final three contracts to R & R Construction Inc. of Lewiston to build public works facilities at Aggregate Road and Route 26. R & R Construction was the low bidder on all three contracts.

The first project provided a salt and sand storage shed at the site and was completed this spring. The bid for the first contract came in at $570,860.

The remaining three parts include a dispatch office for Poland school buses. The original building had been budgeted for $100,000, said Gray. After unsuccessful real estate searches for the school union administrative office space, school committees from the three towns agreed to piggyback onto Poland’s project to save money on sharing common building infrastructure.

Voters at their respective town meetings approved $250,000 toward the construction. Poland will issue the bonds, while the other two towns will contribute to paying off the debt. The state Department of Education agreed to provide $88,000 in debt payments, provided that the school union acted this year.

However, the bid for that portion of the overall construction project came in at $387,409, which factored in contingency costs, said Gray.

“We won’t really know if there’s going to be an overage or how much if there is one at all until the thing’s done,” said Levine.

Levine wrote letters to School Committee chairs in Minot and Mechanic Falls asking those towns to consider paying the additional costs if needed. Minot’s committee responded that its members will consider the additional costs, and Mechanic Falls has not yet responded, said Levine.

In the meantime, the administrative staff is renting space in the former Railway Station restaurant on Maple Street in Mechanic Falls for $2,000 a month. The lease runs through March 2005.

Another part to Poland’s project includes additions to the public works garage to allow more storage and repair space for school buses and other town vehicles. That portion’s bid came in at $952,683. That contract also includes all the site and utilities preparations for the entire project, said Gray.

The town’s existing fuel island with underground tanks will be replaced with a new one that includes a canopy and above-ground fuel tanks. The new fueling station’s bid came in at $210,777, said Gray.

This portion caused the most delay in getting required approval from the state’s Department of Environmental Protection, said Gray.

“The existing site is built on an aquifer,” said Gray. “We have to take special precautions, especially with the fuel. That’s why we decided to have all above-ground tanks.”

The entire project went through a lengthy permitting process with DEP and required several revisions in design and site preparations.