PENDLETON — About $4 million will be spent to complete renovation of the former middle school building for use as an elementary school.

Having previously determined to renovate the building to delay the need for construction of a new elementary school, the South Madison Community Schools board on Sept. 17 approved bids from construction companies to complete the project.

The figure of $3.95 million for the Pendleton Elementary School - Intermediate renovation was accepted after considering bids from 17 contractors.

“We were lucky to get such a turnout,” said Martin Truesdell of Stair Associates. “It is the largest number of contractors I’ve ever seen for a job this size. I was nervous about the way the numbers would come in, but I was really pleased. We feel like even being conservative to make room for soft costs, we can recommend all the alternates.”

The alternates in the bids include a new gym floor with a resilient layer, a roof replacement, an outdoor hard surface play for basketball, additional casework for the classrooms, a new water heater and softener, lighting at the main gym, speakers at the main gym and teacher voice amplification within the classrooms.

While Truesdell said that the bids are low, they are also realistic. He does not anticipate that any of them will result in future problems because of unconsidered costs.

Winning the general contracting and electrical bids was Fredericks Inc. at $2.08 million. The mechanical/plumbing bid was awarded to Lehman’s Mechanical Contractors at $1.67 million. And the technology bid was granted to Fairchild Electric at $197,317.

In other school board news:

- SuperintendentThomas Warmke announced a jump in enrollment of 50 students over the last couple of weeks.

- The school calendar was altered to replace the May 7 snow makeup day with June 4. When the original calendar was adopted, the board was not aware that the Advanced Placement exams are scheduled for May 7.

- The school district will dispose of surplus property through an advertised sale at Pendleton Elementary – Intermediate that includes office equipment, student desks and teacher desks.

- The hearing for the proposed 2010 budget resulted in no questions from the public or the school board members. The meeting for adoption is scheduled at 7 p.m. Oct. 1.