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Officials: Saxe Needs Not Just Auditorium Overhaul, But Also Arts Space Expansion—Total Cost $10.1 Million

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Even an estimated $5.3 million renovation of the Saxe Middle School auditorium won’t accommodate a burgeoning student population, meet visual and performing arts space needs and bring much-needed flexibility to classroom scheduling, according to town officials overseeing a renovation of the facility. Creating sufficient storage and practice and classroom space for an increasingly large student body will require a footprint expansion of about 6,200 square feet off of the building’s south side—a project whose early estimate comes in at about $10.1 million, an owner’s rep for the project said at the Board of Education meeting Monday. The estimate is conservative, said Gene Torone, executive vice president of construction services as Glastonbury-based S/L/A/M Collaborative. Though some money may be saved in lower-cost materials, the figure doesn’t include removal of contaminants that officials expect to find as more testing is done on the auditorium, which is original to the 1957 building. “There is evidence of some [hazardous materials],” Torone said at the meeting, held in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School.

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$4 Million ‘Placeholder’ for Saxe Auditorium Renovation Drives Schools Superintendent’s Capital Spending Plan

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Driven largely by what he called a $4 million “placeholder” for renovating the Saxe Middle School auditorium, Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi on Monday proposed a capital budget of $5,564,500 for the 2015-16 fiscal year. The figure would represent a 140 percent increase over approved capital spending for New Canaan Public Schools in the current fiscal year. Delivered to the Board of Education on the same night that Luizzi recommended an operating budget—a salary- and benefits-driven total that makes up about 97 of all district spending—the proposed capital budget will get full vetting by the school board prior to its Jan. 20 meeting. Once the Board of Ed settles on its budget requests, they go to the selectmen, finance board and Town Council.

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District: PCBs Found in Saxe Middle School Auditorium

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Officials have found PCBs in some of the paint at the Saxe Middle School auditorium, an area of the school that will be closed as a precautionary measure, according to an email sent Tuesday by the district to parents and staff. The contaminants in the auditorium, which is to undergo a renovation that would be completed by the summer of 2016, were discovered by environmental engineering and consultants while planning for the project, according to a letter sent by Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi. Tighe & Bond in its studying “sampled building materials for lead, asbestos and PCBs.”

“Testing indicated the presence of PCBs in some of the paint systems in the auditorium,” the letter said. “As a precautionary measure, access to the Saxe Auditorium is being restricted at this time until additional testing can be performed over the holiday break. Appropriate health and safety protocols have been and will be followed during all testing activities.”

The 7th-8th grade chorus concert was to be held in the Saxe auditorium Tuesday night, according to the district’s website. Reached by NewCanaanite.com, Luizzi said that concert now will be held at the high school, “which is a good move because the Saxe auditorium did not come close to meeting capacity for parents and student who went to the 5th-6th grade concert last week.”

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Nonprofit Foundation Planned to Support Saxe Auditorium Renovation, Wider Visual and Performing Arts Community

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The group that’s overseeing the renovation of the Saxe Middle School auditorium plans to create a nonprofit foundation that will accept donations to offset the cost of the capital project itself, as well as to serve the longer-term interests of New Canaan’s visual and performing arts community, officials say. The Saxe Auditorium Building Committee is tapping SLAM Construction Services of Glastonbury (already on the South School windows project) as an owner’s rep, is targeting early-2015 for draft plans of the renovation and is looking at work completed during the summer of 2016, members said Tuesday at the regular meeting of the Board of Selectmen. “What we need to do first is get a decent scope of the work that we think fits with what is economically viable and fills the needs,” committee member Jim Beall said at the meeting, held in the Training Room of the New Canaan Police Department. The selectmen voted 3-0 to approve a $67,240 contract that will bring in SLAM as the owner’s rep and for project feasibility and scope development services. First Selectman Rob Mallozzi commended the building committee for its sensible approach to the project.

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District: With Enrollment ‘Bubble’ Headed for Saxe, an Urgent Need for More Classrooms

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Though administrators at Saxe Middle School have been creative with using existing space to accommodate more students in recent years, projected enrollment is high enough that the district—and wider New Canaan community—needs to look at capital needs for the facility now, officials say, including temporary classrooms and new construction. With Saxe designed to accommodate a student population of 1,200, a five-year outlook that puts that figure steadily in the mid-1,300’s means that planning needs to happen right now, Board of Education Vice Chairman Scott Gress said at the group’s meeting on Monday night. “I think that the 800-pound gorilla in the room is: What do we do? Where do we go?” Gress said at the meeting, held in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School. “We are moving and we’re putting things together and we’re creating the best opportunities in the short term, but we really need to think start to think and now about the future and is the future temporary classrooms or semi-permanent classrooms?