School is almost out for the summer, but four districts will have plenty of homework to do.
East Hampton, Bridgehampton, Sag Harbor, and Springs have all hired construction crews for capital projects meant to improve the school facilities.
The East Hampton School District is about to overhaul its middle school kitchen, along with the facade of the school, according to Richard Burns, the superintendent. On the horizon also are solar panels plus the new transportation maintenance facility, which awaits a closing date for the purchase of land on Springs-Fireplace Road, Mr. Burns said this week.
The Bridgehampton School’s $29.44 million expansion and renovation project, which will more than double the size of the existing building, is in full swing — and slightly ahead of schedule, according to Robert Hauser, the superintendent.
The Springs School District recently began clearing space for a construction roadway onto the campus from Old Stone Highway, and on July 1, the district will break ground on a new, low-nitrogen-producing septic system. The Springs School, according to Debra Winter, the superintendent, is the first school on Long Island to install such a system.
And in Sag Harbor, there’s a race against time to prep the former Stella Maris Regional School, now called the Sag Harbor Learning Center, to be ready for student occupancy come September. Katy Graves, the superintendent, reports the project is largely on time.
“It is busier than I’ve ever seen it,” John Grillo, the Port Jefferson architect who has designed Bridgehampton’s plans, said of the school construction climate on Long Island right now.
Mr. Grillo, who has worked on dozens of large and small school capital projects over the last few decades, said this week that “if you say you’re going to put a capital project out to bid now, the contractors are going to laugh at you. Everyone’s doing the same thing at the same time.”
Many school districts took out 20-year bonds in 2000 and 2001, he explained, which means they will have debt coming off the books in the next year to two years. “With the tax cap formula that was instituted several years ago, they have to replace that debt,” Mr. Grillo said. “The way to replace that debt is to do large capital projects.”
According to Jerel Cokley, East Hampton’s assistant superintendent for business, the work on the middle school facade will range from $750,000 to $1 million. It involves replacing the cornice, steel window casings, and brickwork. The kitchen will cost around $700,000, he said, for a complete reconstruction involving new cooking equipment, mechanicals, plumbing, electricity, and walls. The money will come from the district’s capital fund, which was approved by voters in East Hampton in May 2018 as a separate ballot proposition.
The transportation facility is to be built at the former East Hampton Town scavenger waste site. Voters in 2018 approved that proposition as well, including $2.3 million for the land and $6.3 million for the building itself. In the meantime, East Hampton continues to lease a transportation depot on Route 114, as it has for many years.
“We would like to own our own property and not worry about renting,” Mr. Burns said. “We’ll be on much more solid footing.”
Mr. Burns said solar panels are also coming soon at all three campuses. The project was tied up in the approval process for some time with the New York State Education Department — which at one point had a backlog of around 40 weeks for reviewing construction projects.
“We’re hoping to start drastically reducing the energy costs of our buildings,” Mr. Burns said. “It’s been held up in S.E.D. forever, but we finally got the green light. There’s a lot of construction going on. It’s been a very fruitful couple of years.”
In Springs, after receiving a state grant to support the just over $1.5 million cost of the septic system, Ms. Winter scheduled a groundbreaking for July 1. She believes Springs will be the first school district on Long Island to have a low-nitrogen septic system; Mr. Grillo said he believes the same to be true. The school will also get a new roof this summer, Ms. Winter said, and the new, gravel construction road being laid down behind the school will eventually be for the new car lane once everything is complete.
“We don’t want construction vehicles coming in on the main road, bumping into the kids or the parents,” she said.
The septic system, roof, and road make up phase one for Springs. Plans for phase two — the main school building construction, which will add six classrooms, a gym, a science lab, a technology room, and soccer and baseball fields — were officially submitted to the state last week. And the once 40-week backlog is now down to a more reasonable 14 weeks, Ms. Winter said.
“That saves us almost $20,000 because they would have charged us for expediting,” she said. “Fourteen weeks was a surprise. It was a help.”
It fact, it was the lengthy backlog of projects in the state review process that was blamed for the elevated construction costs that the Bridgehampton School District encountered when it went out to bid. Bridgehampton would eventually reject several bids and try again for lower prices when seeking its contractors.
It’s been smooth sailing ever since, particularly since the winter weather was favorable, Mr. Hauser, the superintendent, said.
“We are slightly ahead of schedule,” he said. “We’re on target to still have construction 100 percent complete so that the students and staff can occupy the new building and the main building by September of 2020. Logistically, we were able to make a few changes here to accommodate the construction crews. For example, we allowed them to work a night shift from 3 to 10 p.m., so the plumber, the H.V.A.C. mechanic, as well as the electrician were able to make significant improvements during that time. We brought in the temporary boys and girls locker room trailers so that the students could occupy those and the crews could continue with the construction.”
When it’s done, Mr. Hauser said, the school may even have enough “green” attributes to qualify it for a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED, rating.
Graduation has been moved to the far end of the school campus, he said, because the tent that normally gets set up behind the school would have landed right in the new foundation.
“Every two weeks we give some students a tour of the site, so we’re more than happy to give the community a tour as well,” Mr. Hauser said.
In Sag Harbor, Ms. Graves said the district’s contractors have had the advantage of working in a building that is not currently occupied by any students. The former Stella Maris Regional School has been renamed the Sag Harbor Learning Center and its gymnasium has been dubbed Sage Hall, in honor of Margaret Olivia Slocum Sage, Sag Harbor’s great benefactor during the late-19th and early-20th centuries. The Sag Harbor Learning Center will be a school for prekindergarten education and multipurpose spaces that can be used for events, and will also house the school’s business staff. The district is also planning to lease space in the facility to a day care provider. Ms. Graves anticipates the project will be complete in time to open the building for school in September.
“We’re in full swing,” Ms. Graves said. “The spaces are beautiful.”
The only part that has been delayed, she said, is an elevator, but she said it won’t inhibit handicap accessibility to the classrooms because there are ramps in other parts of the building.
While the contractors’ prices came in within the initial construction budget of $6.9 million, the school district’s architects said in May that more than $1.3 million has been spent from the district’s reserves for other parts of the project, such as new playground equipment, asbestos abatement, and security infrastructure. The school board also recently approved $348,239 for phase two of construction, mostly consisting of improvements to Sage Hall.
An arrangement for school employees to use 12 parking spaces in the lot behind nearby St. Andrew’s Catholic Church, which the school district was to sign with the Diocese of Rockville Centre, was approved by the school board on Monday by a 4-3 vote. The arrangement will cost the school district $500 per month, plus $41.50 per additional space if the district finds more are needed.