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The Springfield School District has put a $42.5 million project back out to bid, after deciding against its original plan to go the construction manager-general contractor route to rebuild Hamlin Middle School.

The school district’s contract with Fortis Construction, which won the original bid, was severed and the Portland-based firm was invited to rebid under the more traditional design-bid-build delivery method. That appears unlikely, however, because design-bid-build isn’t a major area of focus for Fortis, according to project manager Tim Sissel.

Fortis will be paid for the preconstruction work it performed for the project.

Springfield School District Superintendent Brett Yancey said there are no hard feelings.

鈥淚t’s pretty simple, really,鈥� he said. 鈥淥ur district had never done a CM-GC project, and we have a limited budget, and once we got into the project we figured out that we probably wanted to stay with design-bid-build 鈥� There are certain projects that are right for CM-GC, and we were hoping that this was one of them, but, unfortunately, it turns out it’s not. It’s really about the price.鈥�

The rebuild is part of a $71.5 million bond program approved by voters in 2014. Hamlin is one of four middle schools in the Springfield School District, all of which enroll between 550 and 600 students. The new replacement middle school will be large enough for 750 students. It’s expected to open in September 2017.

The district is already under contract for $3 million with BBT Architects of Bend. Formal bidding for a general contractor will open in early June, Yancey said.