NORWICH – Construction crews are on site once more in the Norwich City School District, as work begins on the roughly $3 million follow up to the district’s last major building project.
“The really big push officially started yesterday,” Superintendent Gerard O’Sullivan reported on Tuesday, the day after crews, construction trailers and dumpsters arrived on site. Some work, however, was already underway even before students finished the school year. According to the administrator, some contractors began working second shift several weeks ago in preparation for the work, which is slated for completion before students return in September.
“We’ve got a very busy two months (ahead of us),” O’Sullivan said.
According to the administrator, the supplemental project was given the green light by the district’s board of education in January of 2009. The intention is to fund the small-scale capital project with the surplus remaining from the $35.3 million improvement project completed last year.
The scope of the secondary project encompasses work at all four of the district’s school buildings. New windows will be installed at Stanford Gibson Elementary School, as well as at Perry Browne Intermediate School. Entry doors at the intermediate school will also be replaced, but perhaps the most visible transformation will to the school’s tennis courts.
“They are going to be changed over to Pickle-ball courts,” explained O’Sullivan. Courts to accommodate the game – which is played with wooden paddles and combines elements of tennis, ping-pong and badminton – will take up roughly half of the space currently occupied by the tennis courts. The remaining space will be converted to parking.
“Nothing is being done in the new part of the Middle School,” the superintendent said, referring to the wing added in the last project. The only exception will be to the school’s main office, where space currently shared by a school counselor and school psychologist will be split to create an office for Interim Assistant Principal Kistin Giglio. Giglio was appointed to the interim position on June 16 and will replace the building’s current assistant principal, Patricia Giltner, following her planned retirement in September. Giltner’s office, located in another part of the school, will be repurposed.
According to O’Sullivan, new floors will be installed in hallways and classrooms in the older part of the building, old lockers will be replaced and the Home and Careers classroom will be outfitted with new cabinetry.
At the High School, some additional work will be done in the school’s newly remodeled library, namely the installation of new cabinets around the perimeter windows. New ceilings will also be installed in the Music wing hallway, he said.
In addition, a half wall will be removed in the Guidance Office and more tables added.
O’Sullivan said plans to renovate the High School’s Main Office, which would have been done separate from the building project, have been scrapped. The only work slated to take place in that area now is the installation of a plexiglass shield by the teachers’ mailboxes and a bulletin board, both of which are included in the scope of the project.
In addition, he reported, the last two tennis courts at the High School will be resurfaced and the school’s baseball fields will be redone.
“We’ve hit just about everything,” O’Sullivan said, referring to the original list of items identified at the start of the large scale project.
The district has once again retained Tetra Tech, formerly Thomas Associates, as their architectural firm for the project. Greenwood Corporation, which served as the construction management firm for the previous project, will once again serve in that capacity. Bast Hatfield, Inc. was selected as the general contractor, following the bid letting in January.
According to O’Sullvian, all work is expected to be completed by Sept. 1.