After project costs double, board in California halts middle school renovation

The Monterey (Calif.) Peninsula Unified School Board has called a halt to renovations on a school in Marina after the price tag doubled from the initial estimate. The Monterey County Herald reports that when board signed an agreement in 2011 with Wald, Ruhnke & Dost Architects to renovate Los Arboles Middle School, the firm estimated it would cost about $5 million to make improvements. In November 2012, after the architects met with school employees who talked about their needs, they returned to the board with a list of additional items in the renovation plan. The price tag went up to $6.5 million, plus architectural fees. The board approved those changes. Now the architects says the cost to carry out those changes would be $12 million.