LightingSouthwest OhioCincinnati

Middletown District Wide Lighting Upgrade

Middletown City School District bought its lighting the way districts rarely get to — all of it, at once. A single 2021 facility maintenance package covered ten buildings, and the lighting portion of it ran across nine: Amanda, Creekview, Mayfield, Miller Ridge and Wildwood elementaries, Central Academy, the Highview 6th Grade Center, the middle school and the high school.

The counts give the scale. Roughly 6,600 LED 2x4 backlit flat panels and about 500 2x2s, some 2,200 line-voltage T8 tubes, 295 linear high bay fixtures with lenses and wire guards, 385 direct/indirect linear fixtures at the two secondary buildings, and more than 600 0–10V dimming systems with the low-voltage wire to run them. Removal and disposal of the existing lighting equipment is part of the scope, so nothing was left for district staff to deal with afterward.

The agreement is deliberately not a construction contract and says so: it provides materials, installation services and supplies for maintenance across the grounds of the buildings, and states that it does not meet the requirements for construction management under ORC 153.502 or for a construction project under ORC 123.281(B). It was bought through pre-bid TIPS cooperative contracts, and the schedule was written to be coordinated with district staff so installation did not disrupt students and staff.

What the district ends up with is one lighting standard across nine buildings, dimming systems throughout, and a maintenance stock list that fits on a page.

Middletown gymnasium with purple wall padding under new lighting

New linear lighting in a Middletown bus garage bay

Middletown Middies gymnasium with purple bleachers and new high-bay lighting

Technical Discussion

Buying lighting for nine buildings at once

The normal way a district converts to LED is one building at a time, as money appears. The high school gym this year because the high bays are failing, an elementary wing next year out of permanent improvement funds, the middle school corridors whenever somebody complains loudly enough. Each of those purchases is defensible on its own. Together they produce a district running nine lighting standards, a storeroom stocking a dozen lamp and driver types, and a maintenance staff that has to identify a fixture before it can fix one.

Middletown bought the whole thing under one agreement instead, and the argument is visible in the repetition of the counts. Seven of the buildings take the same 16 linear high bay fixtures with lenses and wire guards. Five of them take the identical 62 dimming systems. The 2x4 backlit flat panel is the same fixture at Amanda, at Creekview and at the high school — roughly 6,600 of them across the nine buildings — and the 2x2 is the same wherever it appears.

That has three consequences a facilities director can use. One spec: when a panel fails in year six, the replacement is the panel already on the shelf, not a specification exercise. One order: 2,200 T8 tubes and more than 600 dimming systems bought once do not price like the same fixtures bought nine times. One routine: the same 0–10V dimming system in every classroom means the training happens once and the troubleshooting call is the same call every time.

The contract is scoped as maintenance rather than construction, and states as much — materials, installation and supplies, with no construction management or engineering services, and an express statement that it does not meet ORC 153.502 or ORC 123.281(B). Combined with pre-bid TIPS cooperative contracts, that is what let the district treat relighting nine buildings as a purchase to be scheduled around the school year.

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