Big projects slated for two Greenwich schools
Both Julian Curtiss School and Old Greenwich School are slated for renovations and improvements in the coming years as part of the board’s 2018 Facilities Master Plan
GREENWICH — The Board of Education is reviewing preliminary plans to improve two elementary schools to make them safer, allow for program enhancements and bring the buildings up-to-date and into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Both Julian Curtiss School and Old Greenwich School are slated for renovations and improvements in the coming years as part of the board’s 2018 Facilities Master Plan, which prioritizes infrastructure upgrades. In total, the projects could come at an estimated cost of just under $50 million, well under initial estimates from two years ago.
According to Board of Education Chair Peter Bernstein, reviews of both projects are impor
tant first steps.
“The Master Facilities Plan ... has been a helpful tool in terms of annually prioritizing our capital work on the schools; for both annual maintenance and larger capital projects,” Bernstein said. “It also provides an indication as to what is coming in future years in terms of budgeting on the town side.”
‘Icon of the neighborhood’
Julian Curtiss was built in the 1940s, after World War II. But according to Joseph Costa, principal of Avon-based landscape architecture firm Richter and Cegan, aspects of the building may predate the war.
“We think it was actually designed before the war, but they waited until after the war to actually construct it,” Costa said, at the Board of Education’s Oct. 6 meeting.
Costa described the school as an “icon of the neighborhood,” based on its location atop a small hill. And despite its age, the building was well constructed and remains in good shape, he said. The plot of ample land on its campus also confers certain benefits.
It has a good flow of bus and car traffic, with long driveways connecting the building to the road, and it has a basement crawl space, where builders have been able to route piping and duct work without ripping up floors, he said.
The proposed renovation and addition, which is expected to cost just over $25 million, is not aesthetic. In fact, Board of Education member Joe Kelly, who sat on the school’s building committee, said there was no appetite last fall for a larger project that would have torn down the school and built new. The preference was to maintain the existing structure.
“While the building has all these beautiful old details … it’s in need of some upgrades in standards,” said Tina Greco, a project manager at Hamden-based DTC Engineering.
Those standard upgrades would include a new entrance vestibule to enhance the safety — all in keeping with school safety guidelines set by the Connecticut School Safety Infrastructure Council; as well as a new fire safety
system, new elevator, hazardous material abatement and improvements to the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system.
The project would also add 8,000 square feet of new space to the existing 60,000-square-foot building. Two new prekindergarten classes would be added, bringing its total enrollment up from 320 students to a projected total of 350. As part of the plan, the cafeteria and media center might swap locations, allowing for easier delivery of food and more space.
“We know and are aware that cafeteria and kitchen is woefully inadequate — it’s tight, it’s small, it’s institutional looking,” Greco said.
A schedule and education specifications for the project have yet to be approved to the school board, which will again discuss the project at its Nov. 18 meeting. But according to Bernstein, the new proposal calling for a renovation and addition would come at great savings to the district, as compared with the original plan to build a new school.
“If you go back to our Master Facilities Plan, the original plan was to add about 17,000 square feet to the building at a projected cost of about $41.8 million,” Bernstein said. “So certainly some good value engineering has happened since that work.”
All about accessibility
Like the Julian Curtiss project, a major facet of the work at Old Greenwich Schools, which the board will gets its first look at the plans at Thursday’s meeting, will involve making the school handicap accessible.
The plans will be presented by Mount Kiscobased KG&D Architects, the firm chosen to oversee the board’s Facilities Master Plan. According to the firm, the board will ultimately select from one of three options. The first, and most thorough plan, would cost an estimated $23 million and would add a new three-stop elevator and increase accessibility at the main entrance, in the gym and auditorium and in bathrooms.
It would also add four new classrooms with connecting corridors, relocate the playground and renovate two basement-level classrooms and the main office. While the first option is the most expensive of the three outlined, which feature fewer new classrooms and less renovation work, the most recent estimates are more than $10 million under expected costs from the 2018 Facilities Master Plan.
Work on the school would not deal exclusively with ADA compliance. It would also seek to improve the buidling’s security, educational adequacy and health and safety. But, according to Bernstein, ADA compliance is of paramount importance, not just at Old Greenwich, but for Greenwich Public School facilities, in general.
“Even with the Americans with Disabilities Act passed 30 years ago, we have three elementary schools and our administrative building that lack accessibility,” he said. “It is my personal view is that it is long past due for the time where all of our facilities are completely accessible to our students, staff, parents and the community at large. That is certainly something that was prioritized in the Master Facilities Plan and something that we need to see progress on.”