Colegrove Park School Coming Together
 The new gymnasium in the old auditorium will be a unique feature at Colegrove Park Elementary School. City and school officials toured the construction site on Friday. |
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The worksite at the new Colegrove Park Elementary School is still chaotic but Talan Jeffrey Wilkinson was impressed.
"I think this school is really cool," said Talan, who will enter its doors next fall as a 3rd grader.
Talan and his grandfather, City Councilor Wayne Wilkinson, were among the officials and residents who toured the under-construction school, which is being transformed from a middle school to a K-7 facility.
"I told him he would be the first kid to see the new school," said Wilkinson as the tour wound its way through piled construction materials.
There's still a lot of work ahead to get the structure in shape for its fall opening. The $29 million project is anticipated to be "substantially" complete by July but this winter's unrelenting grip has caused a number of setbacks.
Most of the window openings are still draped in plastic as the frigid cold delayed repointing and reconstruction of the masonry lintels and sills. The cold also hampered the installation of steel reinforcing beams required to bring the century-old building up to current earthquake code.
Still, interior walls were going up and mechanical and electrical work has progressed. The roof is done and with warmer weather ahead, contractors hope to finish sealing up the building. Dramatic changes have also occurred in what had been the old Drury High School auditorium. The magnificent cove ceiling and moldings are all that's left; the balcony is gone and rooms that had been built in that section (used as a library for the middle school) have been removed. A new floor has been installed to cover the sloped original.
"What's happened is we've removed the balcony completely ... we're going to be in-filling the lower parts of these window openings and bring windows in above, and restoring the terra cotta panels that are along here and really bringing the plaster back," said Dorrie Brooks of Jones Whitsett Architects. "And this will probably be the fanciest gymnasium in Western Mass I think.
"It's a very unique environment for a gymnasium."
The building is layered with history. It was Drury High, named after Nathan Drury who left money to establish the school, and then Silvio O. Conte Middle School for the area's longtime U.S. congressman. Prior to that, it was Drury Academy, first a wooden structure and then a Gothic brick building.
One wall of the old 19th-century academy (Drury II) was incorporated into the "new" 1915 building. Brooks said the red brick wall will be exposed to show the tops of the arches from what had been windows in the older building and the top of the wall will be drywalled
"There will be a little moment in this room where you can see the original," she said.
Local historian Paul Marino said he didn't know why one wall was left standing when the old building was removed but he did like that a frieze would be exposed, and that the old terrazzo floors were being refurbished.
"I'm very pleased," he said of the renovation and preservation efforts. "I'm especially pleased they are preserving the original wall."
But he's also for some upgrades, including the modernization of the school's heating and cooling system. The ventilation system from the older academy uncovered during site work "was not really suitable," and Marino remembered how the inefficient system in the old high school led to drastic climate changes.
"In one room you could store meat and in the other room you could cook it," he joked.
Brooks led the tour through the building, stopping at several spots to explain what work was going on and pointing out details. The original windows openings, she noted, are larger than what newer schools would have and the drop ceilings will be set back from the energy-efficiency replacement windows to allow more light to spill in.
Outside, the exterior of the building has been cleaned to show the original yellow brick work that had looked gray for years. Much of the site is still covered with equipment but lighting and part of the loading area on the south side was completed in the fall. Work began about a year ago, with much of the demolition, including the old gym, and site work done during last summer and fall.
Mayor Richard Alcombright said that for those who had taken the last tour in October, the interior might not look much different.
"There's still a lot of work to do in the next four months," he said. "You have to look beyond what's in front of you. What I'm seeing is progress."
More photos from documenting the progress can be seen on a blog set up by Jones Whitsett.
Tags: Colegrove Park, construction, Conte School, school project,
