BEST grant school design detailed in preparation for summer construction

Design details that have been developing for two months for the Holyoke JR/SR High School’s $4.7 million construction project this summer were shared with school board members as part of the March 4 Site Advisory Team meeting.

Holyoke School District voters passed a bond election last November to supplement Building Excellent Schools Today grant funds that were awarded the district.

Design elements, along with guiding principles for each area of construction, were presented by Job Gutierrez and Matt Rogers of Wold Architects & Engineers.

They described the evolution of plans in the four SAT meetings that have been held over the past couple of months, as well as through input from the users in each area.

Project scope addressed

Extensive details were shared for basic areas involved in the construction at the JR/SR high: administration and main entry, warming kitchen/concessions, trainer’s suite, locker rooms, weight room and wrestling room.

Going into the project, Andy Stewart, design/build manager for the Howell Construction/Wold team, said they thought the elevator to the gym floor would be their biggest challenge, but it’s actually ahead of schedule as it’s been approved for fabrication.

The new elevator location will be in the southwest corner of the gym, near the stairway leading down to the wrestling room.

What has evolved in the last couple of months in the design process is the amount of plumbing involved. That has now been identified as the biggest challenge, Stewart noted. They’re trying to break things down so that they definitely can finish the project during the summer months.

Administration office split into two areas

Starting with the south entryway to the JR/SR high, many changes are in store.

A split administration area is in the plan. The receptionist and athletic director offices will be located at the main entrance, while the principal and counselor will remain north of that entrance in the current administrative office area.

JR/SR high principal Angela Powell noted that this provides a secure entrance area but still allows them to be warm and welcoming.

A nurse’s office area will be in close proximity to the receptionist, and space for a future conference room will be close to the AD office. Water access for a sink and toilet will be part of the nurse’s office plan.

In the other administrative area, the principal’s office will open to the hallway and the counselor office will locate to the area where the vault is currently situated. Both will be open to the innovation center to help promote its use.

The existing supply room will be made into more of a teachers’ lounge, and the old darkroom will incorporate a teleconference room. Moving to the current AD office area will be the supply room for such things as the printer, paper storage and staff mailboxes.

Rogers pointed out that they will be incorporating an area for a donor wall in the lobby, likely where the existing elevator is located.

Kitchen/concessions moving to current admin reception area

After some redesign, the current receptionist office area will house warming kitchen/concessions facilities for the school.

A student flow has been set up for Chartwells when they bring over daily meals from the elementary school kitchen. Additionally, the area will be used for concessions.

In visiting with the staff advisers who use the concessions area, Rogers said they realized there were much different needs for concessions than for the warming kitchen.

Adequate storage has been allocated not only for warming kitching needs but also for concessions supplies and equipment. Clean-up will be done in the same area rather than having to move things back to the FFA or FACS rooms.

Trainer’s suite moving to existing concessions stand

The existing concessions area, including the former teachers’ lounge, will house the trainer’s suite in the school’s new design. Input from trainer Kendra Schlachter was evident at the March 4 presentation.

In listening to Schlachter, they revised plans to incorporate an office area to be used almost like an exam room to provide flexible private space.  Windows with blinds will be incorporated into the office.

Early plans for the suite included a toilet/shower area, but that was eliminated because of the proximity to the restrooms. Space was still designated for a changing room, but during the Thursday SAT meeting, Schlachter clarified that she didn’t think the changing area was necessary with the restrooms being so close. That left more available room for the private space.

Rogers said they will split the room into a wet side and dry side with the Whirlpool and ice machines on the wet side.

Listening to Schlachter’s input, the design team will incorporate three half tables against the wall with storage underneath and one full table in the trainer’s suite.

Locker rooms to achieve ADA, Title IX compliance

Locker room remodeling focused on achieving compliance with both the Americans with Disability Act, as well as Title IX for gender equality.

Senior high boys and girls locker rooms will be located south of the running track in the new gym. The existing locker area is not ADA accessible so they’re doing a full gut of that area.

A shared coaches office in the center will be accessed from the running track, not the locker rooms. Rogers pointed out that not all coaches for boys sports are men and not all for girls sports are women, so the coaches office will be separate from the locker rooms. There will still be coaches of the same gender in supervisory roles in the locker rooms.

During last week’s meeting, school board member and coach Dusty Sprague asked about making a separate private changing room in the coaches office for teachers coming right to practice from their classrooms.

That change was added to the locker room guiding principles. Gutierrez cited the importance of the guiding principles for each area of design as they show why decisions were made within the construction plan.

Junior high locker rooms will relocate to the existing weight room.

In that general area, the restroom accessed off the main hall will be a place for refs to change and shower after games, away from main circulation of people.

Supervision was a big push from the SAT group, Gutierrez noted. So hidden nooks and crannies were eliminated in the plans for better supervision and safety.

Rogers explained that all lockers are 18 inches wide by 22 inches deep by 60 inches tall. Some are split into half size, making them 30 inches tall.

For the junior high, there are 25 full lockers split into half size for boys and for girls. That’s 50 total compartments for boys and 50 for girls.

Senior high locker numbers include 70 total compartments for boys and 70 for girls. That’s 30 full lockers and 20 lockers split into halves for each. The mix of full and half lockers allows for flexibility if more full ones are needed.

Rogers said they had a lot of input from P.E. teachers and coaches with regard to the locker room areas.

Weight room to displace existing alternative school

Shared space for the current wrestling room and weight room started the conversation for this portion of the project. When the elevator relocation grabbed some of that space, it became apparent that the area was not nearly big enough.

So the wrestling room stayed where it is and a new home was sought for the weight room. A large space was needed for incorporating existing equipment, along with easy-access after hours and space that could be easily supervised.

After looking at a number of alternatives, the plan shifted to moving the weight room to the northeast corner of the JR/SR high to the area that currently houses the alternative school program.

With this change, the alternative school would move west into part of the existing business class area, taking about a third of the business department’s total space.

Ryan Smelker, owner’s rep for the BEST project, said they first needed to confirm with BEST that they were staying within the guidelines of the grant. Being careful not to add scope to the project, Smelker said they were just finding a new home for the weight room, and BEST approved.

They weren’t moving forward with the plan until they received that approval. “It’s a fine line we’re walking here,” he added. He noted that the weight room and anything associated with it is part of the grant. Anything outside the weight room is not able to be funded by the grant.

This was one area of the plan that heard opposition at last week’s meeting.

Alternative school director Cindi Beavers said she didn’t feel the communication was open on this. She acknowledged that change is tough, not only on teachers but on students as well. Gutierrez noted they had not yet had a chance to meet with Beavers but were planning to.

Smelker said they just arrived at this weight room solution at the previous SAT meeting. They cranked out the drawings and budget, wanting to take those steps before they presented it. If it wasn’t in the budget, he noted they wouldn’t even have gone there.

“I feel like the community isn’t informed about possibly taking out an education area and putting in a weight room in place of it,” business teacher Lori Nelson said earlier in the meeting.

Gutierrez said that this was the space identified by the advisory team. Nelson admitted she just wished the advisory team would have talked to her.

Nelson said she’s been talking with the principal about other alternatives. Powell said they’re looking at some other potential locations to give similar space to what is currently utilized. Gutierrez reiterated that they’ll just need to understand the power needs for any location change.

SAT committee member and school board member Jon Kleve said other alternatives were looked at for the weight room site. They looked at the concrete side of the old gym, as well as the junior high commons area.

He said the guiding principles drove it to the alternative school site based on the area needing to be easily supervised, easily accessible after hours and safe.

Superintendent Kyle Stumpf said they also addressed other locations in the school but determined that taking part of the working side of the ag shop or the new innovation center were not viable options.

Rogers and Gutierrez both emphasized that they would take acoustic precautions and build a full second wall to have full insulation for sound between the weight room and alternative school.

Design team hopes to move forward for user permits

Stewart noted at the end of the presentation that they hope to now be able to mentally shut the book on design. While minor tweaks can be made here and there, he emphasized that they’re under a strict time frame to complete the project for the start of the 2021-22 school year.

The next step would be to allow Wold to freeze the floor plan, moving on to design of the plumbing and HVAC systems, as well as all electrical associated with each floor plan presented.

Once completed, they will need to submit plans to the state for user permits. Stewart said they just found out that the state is backed up with permit applications. As a result, they’re planning to split up permits, requesting a demolition permit and a final building permit.

Stewart acknowledged that they have no control over the permit process, adding, “To do $4 million of work in three months is a big lift. It will take a lot of planning and a lot of flawless execution this summer to get the project done and on time.”

He added that the best bet is to let Wold get the drawings finalized and into the state for review as soon as possible.

Smelker emphasized that they want to work around the district’s needs. “If there was a hiccup, we want to work around your plan,” he added.

Gutierrez conducts meeting in Spanish language

Gutierrez reported that he had conducted an informational meeting to explain the project in the Spanish language March 3, and about 10 community members attended.

At the March 4 meeting, teacher Yesenia Bencomo said the group was impressed with the amount of work that was going to be accomplished in such a short amount of time. They asked good questions and were glad to be informed of the process.

Abatement scheduled during spring break

Since the abatement report came back requiring minimal work, it will be completed during the March 12-19 spring break when students and staff will not be in the building.

This will allow demolition and construction to begin in earnest once permits are in place. It is hoped that demolition can begin May 10 after the volleyball season is over.

Three targeted areas for abatement include a small popcorn ceiling space in the weight room area, floor tile in the JR/SR high office space behind the main receptionist’s desk and some panels in the high school locker room areas where windows used to be.

Plans are being identified to still allow use of the facilities if there would be a home basketball playoff game Tuesday, March 16.

Budget costs clarified

In the board meeting that followed the SAT group presentation last week, Smelker clarified some budget information on the district’s project.

He noted that $100,000 was budgeted for abatement costs. The actual abatement scope was $9,320, with comparable costs for the initial testing. The $20,000 cost instead of $100,000 was huge.

Smelker noted that this has helped a lot in absorbing some extra costs in moving the weight room to the northeast corner of the building.

By the end of April they will see true final bid numbers for the full construction package.

In the SAT meeting, Stewart noted that preliminary estimates were provided on the latest design documents, and he was pleased they were within budget.

He added that there is margin for error because the design is still incomplete at this point and they haven’t subcontracted out the work.

Stewart added that they will be looking at the skilled trades community in this area and will utilize their established relationships to get as much competition to bid on this as possible.

Board member Kleve noted he was present for all four SAT meetings and felt the Howell/Wold group did take input from the group and captured what was in the guiding principles.

Most visible to him was in the high school locker rooms area where they kept coming back with new options and managed to make supervision come first. He noted they did that on a lot of little places around the rest of the plan, but this is the best evidence of how the plan worked out and the process worked.

“The advisory team had a lot of input in the direction of it to go with the guiding principles,” added Kleve.

Board member Sprague called it an amazing process accomplished in four meetings. He cited the training room evolution as they watched Schlachter converse about changes that were immediately changed at the SAT meeting.

“What an amazing job in finding solutions,” Sprague added, noting how ideas were thrown out right and left about the weight room and all ideas were explored.

Board member Chas Lengfelder added that the whole process from the first conference call to the evening’s presentation affirmed that the district made a really good choice on who they hired to work with on this project.

Smelker reiterated, “It’s your school, your space, what you want and need. They’re just trying to listen to you and make the best for your functions and how it works for your school.”

He noted if he had any concern at all, it would be on the schedule. He said if they could lock in as much as possible with only minor tweaks, it would help immensely in working to get started with demolition in early May to be on schedule with the summer construction.

Exploring any and every option to make the summer window happen, Smelker said they talked about two work shifts, and he said Stewart even mentioned the possibilty of hiring two different plumbing contractors because of all the needs in that area.

The school board did set the start-date for the 2021-22 school year back a week later than normal and also discussed some things, like the new junior high lockers, that could be done after school started.