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KINGSTON, N.Y. » Construction managers are aligning paperwork and project needs for the second phase of the $137.5 million renovation of the 102-year-old main building of Kingston High School.

Navigating the state Education Department approval process was discussed at a Board of Education meeting last week. Consultant Scott Hillje said there is an expected nine-month waiting period for plans to be evaluated.

“As we continue to work with SED, they are also changing their review process,” Hillje said. “The reason why they’re doing it is to speed up the process. It allows districts to make a decision if we want to have our projects sit in the queue like we would normally do or we could go through a different process and submit it to a BOCES agency that will review it and then they would assign it to outside reviewers.”

Hillje said part of the effort to expedite reviews is to have plans for all work that would be eligible for state aid at the high school over a 20-year period be included in the paperwork.

“We have started putting together the main (building) phase two package,” he said. “Through that process, we had identified specific projects that would be included in that, with the idea that in subsequent years, other projects would be submitted to SED . ... So when we started working with SED to try to accelerate the funding, we said to them that we will make sure that we include any potential projects that will be forthcoming in subsequent years into this package that we’re going to submit soon.”

Work in the main building will include renovating all the classrooms, installing a new heating and ventilation system, replacing electrical systems and updating the bathrooms. Officials hope to seek bids at the end of 2018 and begin construction the following year.

“There’s probably a two-year window of construction,” senior manager Michael DeLima said.

District Director of Buildings and Grounds Thomas Clapper said after the board meeting that the work is expected to be done in phases, allowing half of the building to be used for classes.

“By SED regulation, there has to be separation between students and construction workers,” he said. “We have a couple of thoughts on how we’re going to do that, and, because we’re putting the pieces (together), we’re still working on that plan.”

Construction manager Robin Scrodanus said there has been enough preliminary work done to evaluate whether there will be surprises in a building that is more than a century old.

“We’ve already done quite a bit of work in main,” she said. “We’ve done a lot of abatement work. We’ve done a lot of mechanical work. We’ve done some general work over the course of the last year or two.”