Minority firm wins part of Gibbs job

The contractor for building the new high school had drawn the NAACP's anger for not including more minorities in the project.

By MARCUS FRANKLIN
© St. Petersburg Times
published January 16, 2003

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ST. PETERSBURG -- Ajax Building Corp., the lead contractor for the $41-million construction of a new Gibbs High School, has awarded a $1.2-million contract to a local minority subcontractor for a portion of the project, which broke ground Wednesday.

Ajax, which had come under fire in December from the local branch of the NAACP for failing to include more minorities, also awarded the contract for the final cleaning -- a roughly $45,000 job -- to a local minority-owned company. Ajax also promised to give local minority subcontractors the opportunity to bid on masonry, metal stud, drywall and paint work in the project, which is scheduled to be done in fall 2005.

In December, Darryl Rouson, president of the local NAACP, said the organization would consider protesting in a variety of ways, including pickets and sit-ins, if Ajax failed to include more minority subcontractors. The school, which opened in the 1920s for black students, has deep ties to the African-American community.

Later in the month, around Dec. 17, Ajax offered Construction Specialties Inc. the $1.2-million subcontract for concrete work, and the $45,000 final cleaning job to minority-owned firms.

"It's progress and we still have a ways to go," Rouson said Wednesday.

The new school at 850 34th St. S is the largest and most costly school building project ever in Pinellas County.

Before Gibbs High opened in 1927, blacks had no high school.

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