Edwardsville School Board Rewards Bids for Asbestos Abatement at Lincoln Middle School

EDWARDSVILLE - The Edwardsville Community Unit School District #7 unanimously approved asbestos abatement bid packages for Lincoln Middle School.

During the Board’s regular meeting on Monday, Feb. 2, 2026, the Board discussed renovation and demolition at Lincoln Middle School to abate the asbestos. The final bids came in at a combined $307,300, which is over $200,000 under the district’s estimates.

The first action item was to approve the asbestos abatement bid package #1 for the summer 2026 renovation of Lincoln Middle School. The district received bids from five bidders, and the lowest bid was from Midwest Service Group at $177,600.

“My concern is, since we’ve addressed this issue multiple times, and multiple times we’ve had discovery, has this been fully stepped out so that we don’t run into another discovery issue? And then, what is the track record of the company that’s winning this bid?” asked Board member Scott Ahart.

District CFO Dave Courtney responded that the project has been fully scoped out. After considering many different alternatives, this is the scope that the district agreed upon. He added that Midwest Service Group and Great Western Abatement have done work with the district before and are “acceptable companies.”

“We talked a lot about the asbestos abatement timelines, and we modified a lot of them to assist with the budget scope of the Lincoln project itself,” he said. “These are the results of those conversations and changes to try to keep this budget scope within a reasonable cost. Both of these are probably over $100,000 under what we estimated for each one.”

Board member Matt Breihan asked if all the asbestos has been identified at Lincoln, and Courtney confirmed that it has. Board President Bob Paty clarified that the Board was voting to award the bid, but they could return to this conversation to discuss whether to pay the companies from the Health Life Safety fund. He said they could talk about it further during an upcoming work session.

Board member Alma Carter asked why the asbestos wasn’t discovered previously. Courtney clarified that “we knew this was coming” in the second phase of the project during the renovation.

The second action item was to approve the asbestos abatement bid package #2 for summer 2026 demolition at Lincoln Middle School. The district received six bids, with Great Western Abatement coming in “significantly under budget estimates” at $129,700, according to the meeting agenda.

Board member Jill Bertels asked how the cost compared to the district’s expectations. Courtney responded that both bids were over $100,000 under the expected estimates.

Members unanimously approved these action items and awarded the bids. Member Lynne Sanderson was absent.

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