NS building project gets an official kickoff
NORTH SMITHFIELD — As promised, town officials held a kickoff gathering at the former Kendall-Dean Elementary School this week to note the start up of what will be a $3 million renovation of the two-story, three level school.
“This was just a kick-off event to let people know that it is happening and it has been a long time in coming,” Town Administrator Gary Ezovski said at Kendall-Dean on Monday.
“I’m happy to get it going,” Ezovski said. The acknowledgment of the start of the Kendall-Dean renovation project came after the town completed contract work with the general contractor on the project, the Calson Construction Corp. of Johnston and its architect, Richard Carderelli.
Calson will compete the project under a design-build arrangement and the town has retained the services of its project consultant, Saccoccio Associates of Cranston to serve as construction manager for the building committee.
John Beauregard, president of the Town Council and a member of the building committee, said the Town Council’s decision to retain the same building committee members who worked on the construction of the Middle School at 1850 Providence Pike – a building that was completed for the 2008-09 school year –
will help ensure the success of Kendall-Dean project.
The building committee includes Paul Vadenais as chairman, David Chamberland, John Perry, Paul Nordstrom, and Beauregard as a liaison to the Town Council.
“I think it is great that we have these guys on the building committee again,” Beauregard said. “They are an all-star team,” he said. “They did a great job with the Middle School and we are fortunate to be able to put them on this project,” Beauregard said.
The renovation of Kendall-Dean will allow the closing of the town’s Memorial Town Hall building on Main Street in Slatersville and its future re-purposing as well as the move of town office out of the former Bushee School building on Smithfield Road.
All municipal offices will move into the updated Kendall-Dean building as well as the North Smithfield School Department’s finance offices. The Police Department will remain in Bushee and eventually see that building renovated for its uses.
The original $5.2 million municipal office project was included in bonding approved by local voters in 2014 along with another $4.3 million for the already started school department improvement project that will see the closing of the deteriorated Halliwell Elementary School off Victory Highway, the addition of 4 new classrooms at North Smithfield Elementary School and updates to the high school’s science labs and gym facilities.
Vadenais said on Monday that the renovation plan will address the upper two levels of the Kendall-Dean building, the basement where the town’s Emergency Management Agency offices will be located and the middle-level former school cafeteria-auditorium where the Town Council meets.
A new elevator will be included in the project that will provide access to all four levels used in building.
The main Greene Street level of the school will be renovated to house the Town Clerk’s office, the Tax Assessor, Tax Collector and the Building Inspector’s office, according to Vadenais. And the second floor above that, the Planning Department, Finance Department, Town Administrator’s Office and the school department’s Finance Office.
Vadenais said the planning for all the improvements has been completed with the help of Saccoccio Associates and now Calson will handle the build out.
“We have a lot of faith in Calson that they are going to do it right and do it on time,” Vadenais said of the construction team that has been put in place for the project.
Although the renovation of Kendall-Dean is moving forward, the $1 million planned renovation of the Bushee School for expanded Police Department use is still under review by the town. Ezovski has maintained that the original bonding approved for the municipal improvement may not have been sufficient for the scope of work envisioned and some adjustment made be needed before the next phase of improvements can proceed.
For now the focus is on making Kendall-Dean an updated and useful town property under the plan that was put into place for the bonding, according to Ezovski.
“It will be great to get the Town Council back into its own meeting space,” Ezovski said while noting the panel moved out of Kendall-Dean due to its deterioration and took up temporary residence in the middle school cafeteria where its meetings are now held.
“The room is not set up as a formal Council chamber,” Ezovski said while noting that will change when the Kendall-Dean project is completed.