The Mitchell school board on Monday unanimously approved the hiring of a Sioux Falls architecture firm and a Mitchell construction firm to build a new Longfellow Elementary School.

The new school, said Superintendent Joe Graves, will be ready for students by the fall of 2010.

The board approved Koch-Hazard Architects, based upon the recommendation of a screening committee composed of Graves, Business Manager Steve Culhane and building and grounds superintendent Greg Girard. Puetz Corporation was the only firm that submitted a bid for construction management. That bid was 4 percent of the construction portion of the project.

Contracts will be finalized at a future board meeting, Graves said.

While the groundwork is being laid for a new Longfellow, that doesn’t mean it’s a done deal, Graves said.

“At any point the board can still reconsider,” he said.

The board has the option of rejecting, changing or downsizing plans at any point in the development process, he said.

“It’s never a done deal until it’s standing on the street,” said Graves, “but with each step you take toward a new Longfellow you’re getting more and more committed to it, and this was a fairly large step of commitment.”

Puetz’s record for construction management was cited as the reason for the committee’s affirmative recommendation.

Graves said experience, cost and presentation played a major part in the choice of a design firm. Koch-Hazard has extensive experience in school design statewide.

Other firms vying for the design portion of the contract were Puetz, and Miller Sellers Heroux Architects, Sioux Falls.

Graves told the board that Koch-Hazard’s presentation was impressive.

“They brought to the interview some rather extensive planning,” said Graves, noting that the presentation included preliminary site plans for the school. Those offerings were voluntary and not required, said Graves.

Koch-Hazard’s fee was quoted at 4.8 percent of the project, the lowest of the bids submitted.

Company principal Jeffery Hazard later said that he couldn’t venture a guess on overall project cost at this early stage.

“We really haven’t gotten into this to determine the scope of the project, (other than knowing) it’s a replacement and enhancement of the elementary school,” he said.

Building a new school in the playground of the present school and then tearing down the existing school to build a playground will present “some interesting challenges,” said Hazard.

Hazard said his firm gave examples of schools built in other communities as part of its presentation. Accurate cost estimating and building schools that are easy to maintain are important issues in their projects, he said.

With elementary schools, Hazard said, “There’s so much you can do with school design that enhances the teaching and learning process. That’s the exciting part of designing schools.”

His company did not bid on the construction management portion of the contract, but he said “we’ve worked well with Puetz on several projects in the past.”

Wayne Puetz was pleased his company was selected to build the new Longfellow.

“I feel confident we can and will do a good job for the school district and the people of Mitchell,” he said. “Our strength lies in assisting in cost control of design and functionality of a project. We’ve done a lot of schools.”

Puetz said his company’s first school was the Gann Valley School in 1955.

“That was my father’s (Clarence Puetz’s) first commercial project,” he said.

No one ventured an estimate on the eventual cost of the Longfellow project. Puetz said the cost of school buildings can vary greatly — from a low of $85 to more than $175 per square foot — depending upon materials and finish.

Graves said the new school’s design hopefully will be something special.

He said the school’s building committee “said many times they want it to reflect what the Longfellow school and neighborhood has been about these many years, so we want it to be something that’s a little more traditional, stately and statuesque. It will probably be something a little different from the other two elementary schools in town.”