High school renovation project nears finish
School trustees have approved $840,925in finishing touches on the Kingston High School renovation and expansion project.
KINGSTON, N.Y. » School board trustees have approved $840,925 in finishing touches on the Kingston High School renovation and expansion project, which is nearing conclusion at about $16 million under its planned $137.5 million budget.
The final projects were approved Wednesday, April 7, during a video conference Board of Education meeting.
Architectural consultant Armand Quadrini said much of the work will be to replace items that have been long been obsolete
and needed an innovative approach to repairs. Included is fixing walls that have had turquoise tiles either damaged or ripped from them over the years.
“We tasked the contractor with finding these tiles and ... they don’t exist anymore,” he said. “So we’re actually having them put in filler ... so that when it’s all painted it will look like one (consistent) composition. The alternative is to tear all this out ... and we think it’s not worth the investment to put some kind of ceramic tile back.”
Projects under the approval include $48,195 to reseed the south lawn, $394,054 for main lobby upgrades, $55,296 for window sills, $121,392 for finishes on stairs and $110,232 for acoustical wall panels. Other projects include $18,274 to repair ceramic tiles in the music wing, $5,034 to reverse the direction the doors open in the principal’s suite and $38,448 to create the Whiston Tobin Memorial Garden. There will also be $50,000 in a contingency budget line.
Board President James Shaughnessy said the work allows the district to take care of items that would be noticed in a high school building that had just undergone renovations.
“It would really be noticeable,” he said. “It would really stick out like a sore thumb if these things weren’t done.”
The final pieces of work come just less than eight years from the first presentations given to the board when the project was proposed in 2013 by Superintendent Paul Padalino.
District residents in December 2013 voted 2,265-2082 in favor of the $137.5 million plan to renovate and expand the high school. In early 2015, state officials informed school officials that aid would be capped at $95 million for the first five years, which led to scheduling the majority of work for completion by 2018 and the remainder over the following five years.
The project included demolition of the Myron J. Michael Building, a former junior high school adjacent to Kingston High, as well as the Tobin/Whiston building; renovations of 41,400 square feet inside the original high school that opened in 1915; improvements to the Kate Walton Field House; and the addition of two new wings amounting to 181,400 square feet.