After ending builder's contract, Mat-Su weighs $573,155 to finish Academy Charter design

The Matanuska-Susitna Borough Assembly will decide Oct. 20 whether to pay MCG Explore Design $573,155 to finish designing Academy Charter School's new high school building in Palmer, two months after the borough terminated its contract with the company hired to design and build it.

The borough signed a design-build contract with Collins Construction in 2025. On Aug. 14, "after repeated delays and contract non-compliance," the borough terminated it, according to the action memorandum. The borough's purchasing director wrote that Collins "failed to satisfy multiple contractual requirements."

Explore Design worked under Collins and had the design 95% done when the contract ended. The remaining work is mostly changes to site access needed to satisfy the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities and the City of Palmer, the memo says.

The administration asks the Assembly to waive formal bidding and hire Explore Design directly. Bringing in a new firm would likely delay construction "by one or more construction seasons," the purchasing director wrote.

The borough is also changing how the school gets built. Instead of one design-build contract, it will finish the design first and then put construction out to bid separately. The memo expects bidding in early 2027 and groundbreaking that spring, with the building ready for the 2028-29 school year. Besides finishing the design, Explore Design would handle permitting, cost estimates, bidding support and inspections during construction. Its services must be finished by Sept. 30, 2028, though the administration is asking for authority to extend that by up to 90 days.

Cole Branham, the borough's project management division manager, told a Sept. 8 joint meeting of the Assembly and School Board that the borough would get an independent cost estimate to check its budget.

Academy Charter's existing 44,560-square-foot building was built for kindergarten through eighth grade. The Mat-Su Borough School Board approved expanding the school to grades 9 through 12 in 2022. The borough's 2024 bond materials listed Academy's projected enrollment as 266 students with a waitlist of 225, and said a new 29,700-square-foot building would allow a total of 446 students.

The contract is on the Assembly's consent agenda.