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Report: Replacing Gym Floor at West, Underground Fuel Tanks at Four Schools Rank among ‘Urgent’ Capital Needs

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Though New Canaan’s public schools all are well-maintained and in good or very good condition, all but the high school—which underwent an extension renovation in 1997—should undergo physical upgrades to meet accessibility codes in areas such as bathrooms, according to the draft of a consultant’s report presented Monday. Individual items such as replacing the floor of West School’s gym and underground fuel tanks installed 25 years ago at West, East, South and Saxe rank as “urgent priorities” for the district, officials from Hamden-based Silver/Petrucelli + Associates said during the Board of Education’s meeting, in presenting the first draft of a capital needs assessment that the school board solicited in the fall. “The five buildings have been prowled by our architects and mechanical, electrical and fire protection engineers,” the firm’s president, Bill Silver, said during the board’s meeting, held in the Wagner Room at New Canaan High School. “We are really giving you all the pieces and a ‘shopping list,’ if you want to call it that, so that you can develop a short-term five-year capital plan or at least know what is 10 years out, or what is 20 years out, as part of your planning,” he said. The report arrives as New Canaan prepares to shape the town budget for fiscal year 2016.

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Remediation Work on South School Windows to Start This Summer

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Workers this summer will remove parts of the original 1955 glass block from portions of South School—now porous and out-of-code, with caulk that has PCBs—as part of a widely anticipated $2.75 million windows project at the elementary school. The environmental remediation work on the glass—which in its first phase will include all areas except for the front of the school, gym and “café-torium”—will start this summer when South is vacant, members of a building committee dedicated to the project decided at their most recent meeting. “That gives us a leg up to have all the upper window area installed at the same time in the summer of 2015 where all the remediation on all of the lower windows is taking place,” Nancy Harris, interim secretary of the South School Building Committee and interim director of finance and operations for New Canaan Public Schools told NewCanaanite.com during an interview after the April 3 meeting, held at district offices downtown. “So it cuts down on the risk of not completing the project before school starts for the 2015-16 school year.”

The South School windows project has been on the radar for parents and district and town officials for several months. The glass block system and original windows at the school need to be replaced, and building expansion joints and caulking and trim in the windows repaired, Shelton-based engineering and environmental consulting firm Tighe & Bond and SLAM Construction Services of Glastonbury have found.