NORTH ADAMS, Mass. —The footings and foundation for the new Greylock School is expected to be poured by mid-May.

 

And while ground has technically already been broken, the ceremonial event will happen next Tuesday at 1 p.m. 

 

The demolition of the old school began two weeks ago and is slowly continuing. 

 

Timothy Alix of Collier's International, the owner's project manager, told the School Building Committee on Tuesday that project is now in the middle of abatement and demolition, and should soon be able to keep the committee abreast of the activities taking place and what's ahead. 

 

There's lots of little milestones ahead, he said, explaining a spreadsheet that will track contractor Fontaine Bros. Inc.'s 17-month construction of the $65 million project. 

 

Todd Ashford, a project manager at Collier's, said residents and neighbors will be informed of the progress through a newsletter, giving the committee members the first edition which includes a picture of Herbie, the canine supervisor. 

 

"There's some minor abatement that will be continuing throughout the building. As they get more demolition completed, they can access more areas of of material to be abated," he said. The newsletter will be published at least once a month "but as bigger milestones are hit, we like to update the public as sooner rather than later."

 

The newsletter is also posted on the North Adams Public School's website. 

 

Committee member Connie Tatro said she'd taken her day-care charges to see the work going on behind the 12-foot fence and that they were very excited to see Herbie. 

 

"If you had any question about whether we picked the right people, they beeped their horns at the kids, they waved their buckets to say hello. It was just the most special moment my kids could have ever had," she said. "And the dog, they're like there's a dog out there!" 

 

City Hall did receive its first complaint Tuesday, regarding mud in the road, said Mayor Jennifer Macksey. "They're going to add sweeping the road as trucks, you know, go in and out of the site. There's some mud going on to State Road, in front of people's driveways, and they've already rectified that situation."

 

Collier's has a overseer in the city, project leader Jefferey Manley, to act as a liaison in these issues,. 

 

"He is on site every day at Greylock. He has a trailer. He was staying here with us at City Hall, but now he located to actually on site," the mayor said. "He is our point person, reports to us quite a bit about activities ... we do have a construction meeting every Thursday, I believe it's at 11 o'clock, and Jeff and Todd and Tim and Jesse [Saylor] and Anne [Queally] facilitate that meeting with Fontaine and the team here at City Hall and with the school department."

 

Saylor and Queally from TSKP Studio, the school's designer, were also on the virtual meeting to update the committee on their progress reviewing materials.  

 

"We've reviewed 67 submittals to date. One of them was 30-40 pages long, and that was our structural steel sequences one through five. That's about a third of the structural steel for the building," said Saylor. "To give you a sense of what's involved, so we're looking at drawings of each piece of steel, the dimensions and the location, and we're checking it off of the design drawings to make sure that we're achieving the intent that we were hoping."

 

He said submittal reviews will be "hot and heavy" for the first six months plus the team is responding to contractor's requests for information, or RFIs. The TSKP team has had 40 so far, which Saylor described as typical. 

 

"We think our our contractor has been very good, frankly, in asking reasonable questions, that make sense," he said. "Sometimes you get inundated with questions which don't make sense and that's not happening."

 

In other business, Saylor reported that OTO (O'Reilly, Talbot & Okun) Engineering is overseeing the removal of hazardous materials from the building and that so far the crews have found the soil suitable for foundations.

 

• The Appalachian Trail kiosk committee has been meeting on design for the new structure and TSKP is working with Little League on plans for the new ballfield at Noel Field Athletic Complex. 

 

• The committee approved a contract with Allied Testing Laboratories Inc. at $60,400 for materials testing and special inspections. This bid was the lowest of four and Alix noted the company is currently working down the road on the Williams College Museum of Art.

 

• The committee approved a price of no more than $362 a ton to dispose of the concrete foundation of the old school that has an applied mastic for damp proofing. The mastic contains about 1 percent asbestos and it's estimated 600 tons will have to be shipped to a site in New Hampshire. 

 

• The committee approved a credit of $378,269 from the estimated value of an elevator and for the scope of work to remove a glass block wall for use in the new school. Alix said it was not feasible to save the blocks because of their condition.