State College Area School District is moving closer to the start of construction on the new Park Forest Middle School, though it will be a couple months later than originally expected.
The current timeline for the new 270,000-square-foot building on Little Lion Drive in Patton Township anticipates construction bidding will now take place in February and March, with approval of low bidders scheduled for April and a notice to proceed issued to the approved low bidders on May 15, Jeff Straub of project architect Crabtree, Rohrbaugh & Associates told the school board on Monday night.
As of October, the district expected to bid the project in January and February for a March construction start.
With a projected 30-month construction period, the new school now likely will open to students in January 2029 instead of August 2028.
“We’ve been working back and forth with a number of contractors as well as the construction manager and we believe a 30-month construction period appears to be the correct length of the overall schedule,” Straub said.
While the district’s planning for the new school, which will be located across Valley Vista Drive from the current, 54-year-old Park Forest Middle School, has generally moved at a steady pace, the reason for the change in schedule is the often difficult-to-project timing of the myriad approvals and permitting required before construction can move forward.
The board approved 90% design on Sept. 29 and expects to review the final design on Dec. 15, with approval scheduled for Jan. 12.
At the Jan. 12 meeting, the board is also expected to see a complete project budget. Estimated costs presented by Straub in May ranged from $127.9 million to $136.9 million including site work, construction, escalation estimates, soft costs and contingencies.
As it stands, the Patton Township Board of Supervisors is tentatively expected to vote on approval of the land development plan in February, and a PennDOT decision on signalizing the intersection of Little Lion Drive and Valley Vista Drive is anticipated by May 15.
“Both of these are fluid… but we’re trying to use this as our overall template for planning schedule-wise,” Straub said.
The project also must receive code review approval (estimated for late February) and National Pollutant Discharge Elimination Systems permitting for stormwater management (estimated for mid-May), among other requirements.
District officials discussed the plans at a Patton Township Board of Supervisors meeting in November, when supervisors, planning commission members and township police chief Tyler Jolley raised some concerns about traffic patterns, parking configurations and safety on Valley Vista Drive.
School board member Amy Bader said on Monday that she appreciated the meeting and the township’s willingness to work with the district “to find as many solutions as we can to make this experience as safe as we can for the community and our students.”
“Valley Vista is an inherently risky road in general and we want kids in that community to be safe when they have to navigate it,” Bader said. “Anything that we can do as we work through this project that meets those end goals, we’re eager to do.”
One important piece of addressing concerns about Valley Vista Drive will be a traffic signal at the Little Lion Drive intersection. While PennDOT must issue that decision, Mike Fisher, SCASD director of the physical plant, said the project team expects the traffic study will meet the warrant for a signal.
“There’s nothing on our radar that would give us pause that PennDOT would not approve it at this point,” Fisher said.
The school board in March 2024 selected an 18-acre parcel off of Valley Vista Drive — and later acquired an adjacent 7-acre lot — as the site for a new three-story building to replace the existing nearby Park Forest Middle School after months of conversation, presentations and community forums. The current building on School Drive in Patton Township was last renovated in 1995 and had long been eyed by the district for major reconstruction or replacement.
Crabtree, Rohrbaugh & Associates has led the planning and design process and in October the board approved Massaro Construction Management Services as construction manager for a project with a low bid of $1.88 million. Both Crabtree and Massaro worked with the district on the new State High building that opened in 2018 and the Corl Street, Radio Park and Spring Creek elementary school projects completed in 2019.
