Architect Kurt Lavaway offers an update on the school project to the Southwick Tolland Granville Regional School Committee Oct. 2. (Photo by Hope E. Tremblay)
SOUTHWICK – While shovels will not hit the ground for a while at Southwick Tolland Granville Regional (STGR) schools, the three-school renovation project is moving forward.
Project Manager Jon Winikur and architect Kurt Lavaway gave a presentation to the STGR School Committee last night and said the design development is a work in progress. They offered an overview of the current design, which includes several changes from the schematic design. One change is the look of the main entry to the middle/high school.
“It was originally rounded and is now more linear,” said Lavaway. Another change at the combined middle and high school is in the technology education areas
“The hope us to make it more technology-based,” said Lavaway.
Winikur said the media center is another space that was tweaked.
“We talked a lot about needing to grow,” Winikur said. “The idea here is to expand it by taking over some of the adjacent classrooms.”
Locker rooms have also been revamped from the schematic design. Winikur said the layout of the boys room will remain the same and the girls room will be changed to be more like the boys locker room. The exterior of the school will be brick in the front where the middle school students enter, and will be blocks laid like brick in the rear of the building. Winikur said that will reduce costs while maintaining durability.
Because Southwick took a second vote on the debt exclusion for the project, the schedule for the project was off track, said Winikur.
“We lost a chunk of time,” he said, adding that there is a plan to recoup – and even save – time. “The MSBA has given the authority to segregate the project,” Winikur said.
Because the MSBA (Massachusetts School Building Authority) gave special consideration and reimbursement to the district to incorporate renovations at Woodland Elementary, Powder Middle and the high school as one project once Granville joined the district, it was supposed to be bid as one project with one contractor. In order to expedite the work, the MSBA is allowing the project to be split for bids.
“We can accelerate work at Powder Mill and Woodland since they are repair projects,” said Winikur. “We feel confident we can get these projects out in March and could start construction in the summer of next year,” he said.
The new schedule predicts that the new middle school wing would open in January of 2015. Once those students are moved up to the new space, Powder Mill would have larger spaces available for construction. Winikur said there is a possibility of using “swing spaces” in Woodland and Powder Mill to continue construction while school is in session,
“We could cut a year off our original timeline,” said Winikur.
