North Adams School Project Sets 'Aggressive' Schedule
 The goal is to have Conte School reopened by the beginning of the school year in 2015. |
The project, approved by the Massachusetts School Building Authority last fall, has fallen behind several months because of a citizen's petition that put the $30 million K-7 school before a public vote.
"This hasn't been easy and everybody did the right thing," said Mayor Richard Alcombright, at the first School Building Committee meeting since the project's narrow passage on April 30, by he estimated 54 percent. "I am convinced that we will make a lot of believers out of the project, and we have to continue working on it. ...
"We will make a lot of those 46 percent believers."
Mel Overmoyer of Strategic Building Solutions, the owner's project manager, acknowledged the difficulty of trying to open a school in the middle of the school year, particularly if some redistricting will be required.
"We hope to still open the school in the fall of 2015. ... It is exremely aggressive," he said. "We're going to do our best but MSBA has very specific requirements, a very specific approval process. ... We're doing in two months what you're supposed to have three months to do.'
Overmoyer said it will take significant commitment to keep to the timetable. Over the next 17 months, the committee, SBS managers and Margo Jones Architects will have to hustle to make the document filings necessary to the state to move the project along.
The committee is looking at turnaround times of two months for plan details, approvals and cost estimates before passing on to the MSBA. That's three times in eight months before getting to the bidding process.
A subcommittee will be charged in "prequalifying" general and trade contractors in the fall to filter out unqualified candidates from the bidding process. Overmyer said hundreds of applications should be expected; while causing more work (every reference will have to be checked), more interest will help keep costs lower. The actual bidding process will take place in early 2014.
"We have to be careful about construction time lines," said Overmoyer. "If you take it too long it gets expensive, make it too short gets expensive. ... We have to find that sweet spot."
Margo Jones said her team is already going back over the plans and expects to speak more with teachers and building staff on details such as room sizes, doors, security, handicapped access and the logistics of using the school.
"We're very comfortable with the plans but we think they can be tweaked," she said, pointing to possible changes around the cafetorium and ways to limit access to the building during public events.
The exterior landscaping is also being reviewed since some of it related to Colegrove Park had initially been removed for cost-savings. Overmoyer reminded the gathering of the problematic retaining wall on the west side of the property on East Main Street.
"The retaining wall is in really bad shape. We're trying to figure out how to deal with that," said Overmoyer. "There's a lot of design work that needs to be done."
The School Building Committee will meet on the first and third Mondays of the month beginning at its next meeting on Monday, June 17, at 5 p.m. at Conte Middle School. Meetings are open to the public.
Tags: Conte School, school building committee, school project,
