Denton ISD Approves $5.37 Million Change to Make Ginnings PK-8
Denton ISD trustees on Nov. 10 approved Change Order #1, adding $4,910,425 to the Ginnings replacement contract and raising the total probable cost by $5,367,463 to convert the campus to a PK-8 academy, Community Impact reported.
Denton ISD trustees on Nov. 10 approved Change Order #1 on the J.L. Ginnings Elementary School replacement, adding $4,910,425.00 to the construction contract and lifting the project's overall probable cost $5,367,463.00 so the new campus can open as a prekindergarten-through-eighth-grade academy, Community Impact reported on Nov. 13. The official Nov. 10 regular-meeting agenda listed the item at 6 p.m. as consent item 7.G, under the posted heading “Change Order #1 and Revised Total Probable Cost for the Ginnings School Replacement Project.” Official minutes had not been opened for this report, and Community Impact did not publish a roll-call, so this account does not describe the vote as unanimous.
The official agenda item summary says Balfour Beatty Construction put the change order at $4,910,425.00, and that related fees and soft costs of $457,038.00, taken together with that figure, lift the total probable cost $5,367,463.00. Trustees in August 2025 set the guaranteed maximum price at $57,685,060.00; the same official summary dates that action to Aug. 12, 2025, and records the project's total probable cost then as $63,278,589.00. After this change, the summary lists a guaranteed maximum price of $62,595,485.00 and a total probable cost of $68,646,052.00. Adding the earlier guaranteed maximum price to the $4,910,425.00 change-order amount produces that revised contract figure; adding the August total probable cost to the $5,367,463.00 increase produces the new $68,646,052.00 total, our arithmetic from the official amounts.
What the change order adds
The AIA G701 change-order form in the board packet, prepared for “Ginnings Elementary School Replacement (now PK-8 Academy)” at 2525 Yellowstone Place, Denton, Texas 76209, describes the work as turning the elementary design into a PK-8 campus. It adds an activity room beside the gym, plus dressing space for students in the middle-school grades. It also folds in another science laboratory, a second art room, and a multipurpose fine-arts space, and it updates finishes and branding for a wider age range. Corgan Associates, Inc., is named as architect, and Balfour Beatty Construction, LLC, as contractor. The architect signed the form on Oct. 23, 2026, and the contractor on Oct. 30. The owner signature line for Denton ISD was still blank on the copy in the packet, which states the change order is not valid until the architect, contractor, and owner have all signed. Community Impact, writing after the meeting, said the trustees approved the contract changes.
The same form adds 155 days to the contract time and sets substantial completion for Oct. 26, 2027. Community Impact reported that officials did not give a new date for when students would actually start classes in the new building, and that the campus’s offerings were not discussed at the Nov. 10 meeting.
The agenda item summary states that Denton ISD voters, on May 6, 2023, passed a bond proposition that included funds to tear down and rebuild J.L. Ginnings Elementary School. This change order amends an existing reconstruction contract funded under that bond; it is not a new bond election. The official Ginnings construction page lists the district office at 1307 N. Locust St., Denton, Texas 76201, the same owner address that appears on the change-order form, with a main telephone number of 940-369-0000.
Related reading: Northwest ISD Approves High School Zones Ahead of Davis Opening.
