The State College Area High School project is on track for its January opening, and crews will be on a tight schedule to get everything completed heading into the home stretch.
Tim Jones, project manager for Massaro Construction Management Services, and Ed Poprik district director of physical plant, provided a regular update on the new construction and renovations at the south campus to the State College Area Board on Monday night.
Overall, the project remains on schedule for students to move into classrooms when they return from winter break. For renovations to the existing building, the new kitchen and cafeteria is currently 20 days behind schedule. The completion of roofing this week, though, should help with that.
‘This is where a lot of attention and some catch-up work needs to take place,’ Jones said.
Poprik noted that the project is about eight weeks from the completion date and there are eight weeks worth of work to complete.
‘If everything goes right, we’ll finish right on time,’ he said. ‘So that leaves no time for anything to go wrong. We don’t plan on anything going wrong… We believe we’ll get there on time.’
Jones said the weather in October has been favorable and that has helped site work considerably. Top soil has been applied to the courtyard between pods C and D and sidewalks are being installed. The interior courtyard near the cafeteria, to be used for performances and outdoor classes, is taking shape as well.
Inside, flooring installation has begun in the classrooms. Glass has been installed in the large group instruction area overlooking the main entrance and the space is now weather-sealed.
In other renovations to the existing building, framing has been completed for the new culinary arts area and installation of a large stainless steel kitchen hood has begun.
‘It’s pretty similar to how most construction projects finish up — a lot of close coordination needed at the end,’ Jones said. ‘But we’re pretty positive.’
Also on Monday, the board approved a number of purchases already budgeted within the project’s soft costs for furniture, fixtures and equipment. Those included security cameras, phones, projectors, LCD televisions, power supply units and, for the Career and Technical Center, welding arms and a metal lathe.
Elementary school projects
The bid timeline for the renovations and new construction of three elementary schools is being altered.
Contractor bids were originally due on Oct. 31, but after requests from several contractors that has been extended to Nov. 2.
But while the due date was pushed back a few days, the date to award bids has been moved up.
The district will receive reimbursements from PlanCon, the state Department of Education’s program for school construction, for the planned renovations and new construction at Corl Street and Radio Park and the new school to be built at the Houserville site, to be named Spring Creek Elementary.
District administrators, however, learned that the department’s architect, James Vogel, now plans to retire on Nov. 10 and the department was unable to provide specifics on plans for an interim replacement. The architect is required to review plans at the start of the reimbursement process.
In hopes of avoiding a delay in the process, the bid award date has been accelerated from Nov. 13 to Nov. 8, and the board will have a work session on Nov. 6 to review the bids. They will be provided to the board as soon as possible after they are received on Nov. 2.
‘Certainly the most aggressive bid award schedule I’ve been involved with,’ Poprik said.
Memorial Field renovation
Because of the changes to the bid timeline for the elementary school projects, the board will slightly delay a vote on the final locker room layout and land development plans for Memorial Field renovations.
Those are now scheduled for Dec. 4. Construction bid awards are still scheduled for April 2018.
The board also authorized a contract with Massaro for construction management of the Memorial Field renovations. Fees in the contract total $277,200.
Easterly Parkway Chiller Replacement
The board authorized the district to put out for bid the replacement of the chiller used in the air conditioning system at Easterly Parkway Elementary School. Poprik said air conditioning at the school has been an ongoing problem.
The chiller was installed in 2001 and was projected to have a life span of 20 years. However, multiple attempts to repair it have been made, the manufacturer no longer produces replacement parts and the type of refrigerant it uses is no longer available.
As a result, Poprik said replacing it now at a cost of $100,000 to $200,000 is the better option than waiting another three years and continuing to attempt to repair it.
