Who will build new Hobbton High?

Superintendent Dr. Jamie King and members of the Sampson County Board of Education met with the five construction firms that will be entering a bid to oversee construction of the new Hobbton High School on Tuesday morning during a planned work session.

These five construction firms come to Sampson County with unique qualifications and work experience, much of it founded upon serving the needs of a variety of customers in and directly adjacent to southeastern North Carolina. The first of these, Metcon, is a Native American-owned construction management and design firm, with experience in education, health care, and government projects, employing 341 people. The second to go before the board was New Atlantic, which since its relatively more recent 2002 founding has grown by orders of magnitude and has become a tightly knit team of seasoned professionals that are able to bring their years of experience to bear with their 104 employees.

Third came the Samet Corporation, founded in 1961 in the Upper Piedmont region of North Carolina and has since grown to become the largest general contractor in NC by revenue, employing nearly 1,400 people. The fourth would be Consigli Construction Company, the eldest and largest of the firms, having been founded in 1905 in the New England states with a focus on environmentally friendly practices, that currently employs more than 3,300 and has been named by the Boston Journal as one of the best places to work in the state of Massachusetts. The final firm to come before the board with a presentation was the Goldsboro-based TA Loving Company, which provides services including construction consulting, pre-construction services, general contracting, construction management, design, and building information modeling, currently employing between 250-500 at any one time.

It is important to note that for the board and Dr. King, this construction project is not only a matter of raising up a new building, but also ensuring that this project benefits the community it serves. Recent discussions with Dr. King highlighted the importance of this mindset, particularly in rural areas such as the Hobbton district, where a new school building and the infrastructure it provides can significantly impact the community. There is an overall far-thinking, multi-generational tone to the thought process at play with the Sampson County Schools leadership in this matter, with King flatly stating, “Nobody in this room will be around to build the next Hobbton High School,” with the implication clear that whoever ended up building the new edifice would be doing so in a way that would withstand the test of time for some decades, while also still being open and adaptable enough to grow into whatever needs and requirements future generations will place upon it.

When queried on what factors the board members thought to be the most important in this process by a representative from Samet Corporation, Jennifer Naylor landed a humorous and perfectly timed single-word response: “Budget,” evidencing the care with which she and the rest of the board attempt to put the public’s money to work.

Dr. King echoed this sentiment, as well as reinforcing his own generational message, by adding, “The budget is what keeps me up at night. But once I wake up, this school really does need to last a lifetime.”

Of critical importance to the new Hobbton High School project is the comprehensive timeline for completion, which stands at somewhere around 18 to 22 months, though per previous comments by Dr. King, the completion of the new Hobbton High School is anticipated to be a multi-year project, with an estimated time frame of three to four years from the initial funding approval. All of the firms involved in the work session were confident in their ability to meet any of the deadlines that might be placed upon them for the completion of this project.

A decision on which of these five firms has been selected for the contract to construct the new Hobbton High School will be delivered on May 28, after the board meets in a closed session on May 27.