Officials upset by school completion delay
Superintendent says he anticipates building opening on time
PHOENIXVILLE » Construction of the Phoenixville Area Early Learning Center and Manavon Elementary School is just days away from completion, but officials said they are not happy the process has taken over two months longer to finish than originally planned.
While the estimated $71 million school missed its May 15 construction completion date, Superintendent Alan Fegley said Tuesday it is still on track to meet the new July 30 deadline. Final inspections of the building are scheduled to take place July 25. The district has given itself a few days to allow for any last-minute corrections that may need to be made before the new completion deadline hits.
“I see at this point no major obstacles to us opening and having the building on July 30,”
he said. “I see no obstacles at all for us opening on time for the building.”
There are some expenses the district has incurred due to delays, Fegley said. For example, in moving, the district moved materials into the new building and kept the movers on schedule but they could not move all of the furniture into the exact rooms to which they were assigned.
Any additional expenses identified will be backcharged to the contractor per the clauses the district has in its contract for not finishing on time, Fegley said.
“It’s about a $2,500 a day possibility that we have,” he said. “Given the number of days, we’re not even close to hitting that particular num- ber. Right now I’m feeling very comfortable with us being able to get any extra funds back that we need that were caused by the delay by the contractor.”
School Board member Josh Gould expressed his frustration with the delay.
“We’re pretty unhappy about the schedule slips that we just talked about,” he said. “There’s a lot to talk about and that will be happening over the next few months. I don’t think we need to say more than that but I think we should express we’re not asleep at the switch here. We’ve been watching and continuing to watch. We’re unhappy about what happened and we’ll be dealing with it.”
An opening day picnic at the new building is scheduled for Aug. 28 and an official ribbon cutting ceremony is scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 16 at 10 a.m.