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Demolition will begin at Mount Greylock Regional School this summer.

Mount Greylock Prepares for Summer Construction Work

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
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School Building Committee Chairman Mark Schiek conducts Thursday's meeting with co-Chairwoman Paula Consolini.
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The process of renovating and rebuilding Mount Greylock Regional School began when the school year ended last week.
 
"We started pretty much the minute school was out on Tuesday," facilities supervisor Jesse Wirtes told the School Building Committee on Thursday. "The custodial department turned the school upside down on Wednesday.
 
"The end date to be out of Phase 1 is July 1. [Turner Construction] can start abatement after that."
 
Phase 1 is the school's central core, which will be gutted and transformed as part of the $64.8 million project, planned to be completed by spring 2018.
 
In order to pave the way for that major renovation, the school is relocating offices and instructional spaces that occupy the Phase 1 area.
 
As early as the first week in July, construction manager Turner Construction hopes to start abatement and installing plumbing and electrical work that will connect the south end of the junior-senior high school to the gymnasium, which would otherwise be cut off because of the demolition work.
 
On Thursday, the School Building Committee authorized architect Perkins Eastman to spend up to $15,000 to hire a third party to monitor air quality at the site during the initial abatement.
 
Ultimately, air quality monitoring for the whole project is going to have a higher price tag, but given the timeline, the architects want to bring in a monitor for the initial work while it reviews bids for the more substantial piece.
 
"We're looking to get a bridge so we can get someone out here for the startup of the enabling project," Dan Colli told the committee.
 
While most of the project is going to involve interior renovations for the first seven or eight months, there will be one bit of exterior work coming online much sooner than that. The committee was told on Thursday that it can expect to see heavy equipment on site just after July 4 to start constructing a new bus loop. The new traffic pattern will be in place in time for the start of the 2016-17 academic year.
 
Wirtes, a member of the committee, told his colleagues that work is under way to identify which trees on the school grounds can be moved or must be removed in order to accommodate the new loop and/or the new three-story academic wing that will be erected later in the project.
 
Wirtes reported that at least one of the trees has been identified as having potential to be harvested to provide material for benches that will be incorporated into the renovated school.
 
Much of Thursday's meeting was devoted to a review of recommendations from the committee's facilities working group. Committee member Robert Ericson discussed a number of modifications to the design that the working group is recommending to the architects.
 
Some are intended to make the new facility more energy efficient. Others will increase functionality.
 
Among the latter is a recommendation that the doorway into the new nurse's office be widened to 41 inches in order to allow for easy access of wheelchairs and EMT gurneys. Another is the suggestion that locker room showers be equipped with private stalls.
 
On the energy front, Ericson said the working group is recommending that instead of relying on one centralized hot water heater, the school install point-of-use units for those parts of the building — like the main office — that are used year round.
 
The group also recommends that the areas that operate year-round, including during school vacation periods, be heated and cooled by geothermal energy.
 
The School Building Committee previously decided against geothermal as an option for the entire school because of the cost of installing the number of wells that would be needed. But the working group noted that the school has two existing wells that are not suitable for potable water but could be used for geothermal energy production, and, "By having the administration/central offices on a separate system, the main heating system can be turned down or off during vacations," the working group's report reads.
 
In other business on Thursday, the School Building Committee was informed that the final contract with Turner Construction is being reviewed by the district's counsel in the hopes of having it ready for the School Committee's approval at its Monday, June 20, meeting.

Tags: demolition,   MGRHS school project,   

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Mount Greylock School Committee Votes Slight Increase to Proposed Assessments

By Stephen DravisiBerkshires Staff
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — The Mount Greylock Regional School Committee on Thursday voted unanimously to slightly increase the assessment to the district's member towns from the figures in the draft budget presented by the administration.
 
The School Committee opted to lower the use of Mount Greylock's reserve account by $70,000 and, instead, increase by that amount the share of the fiscal year 2025 operating budget shared proportionally by Lanesborough and Williamstown taxpayers.
 
The budget prepared by the administration and presented to the School Committee at its annual public hearing on Thursday included $665,000 from the district's Excess and Deficiency account, the equivalent of a municipal free cash balance, an accrual of lower-than-anticipated expenses and higher-than-anticipated revenue in any given year.
 
That represented a 90 percent jump from the $350,000 allocated from E&D for fiscal year 2024, which ends on June 30. And, coupled with more robust use of the district's tuition revenue account (7 percent more in FY25) and School Choice revenue (3 percent more), the draw down on E&D is seen as a stopgap measure to mitigate a spike in FY25 expenses and an unsustainable budgeting strategy long term, administrators say.
 
The budget passed by the School Committee on Thursday continues to rely more heavily on reserves than in years past, but to a lesser extent than originally proposed.
 
Specifically, the budget the panel approved includes a total assessment to Williamstown of $13,775,336 (including capital and operating costs) and a total assessment to Lanesborough of $6,425,373.
 
As a percentage increase from the FY24 assessments, that translates to a 3.90 percent increase to Williamstown and a 3.38 percent increase to Lanesborough.
 
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