Letter: Working Diligently On A New Central Middle School

The following was submitted to Patch by the Central Middle School Building Committee

The purpose of this letter is to update the public on the effort to build a new Central Middle School (“CMS”) which is being replaced due to the condition of the current structure.

Since our first CMS Building Committee meeting (“CMSBC”) on July 11, 2022, we continue to move forward in our mission: to fulfill the requirements of the Educational Specifications (voted by the Board of Education on August 11, 2022 (“Ed Specs”)) and to open the doors of the new CMS by August 2026. The project is on schedule and members have been working in sub-committees to ensure we meet all deadlines.

Our Committee includes financial executives, an attorney, and several construction and architectural industry professionals. All have volunteered their time, skills and experience to steward this crucial project and its budget. In addition, the Committee also includes members from the Board of Education, the Board of Selectmen, the Board of Estimate and Taxation, the Representative Town Meeting, the Department of Public Works, and the Planning and Zoning Commission, as well as liaisons from the First Selectman’s Energy Management Advisory Committee and the Advisory Committee for People with Disabilities.

Thus far, the Committee authorized a preliminary geotechnical (soil) investigation across the CMS campus to determine the most viable placement for the new school.

After competitive public bidding processes and interviews, the Committee has hired both an Owner’s Representative, Construction Solutions Group, to provide project management and state construction grant application services and an architect, S/L/A/M Collaborative (“SLAM”), to design a new, state-of-the-art school building and campus. SLAM has an impressive breadth of work designing schools in Greenwich (Greenwich Country Day) and across Connecticut. On November 16th, the Board of Education unanimously approved the CMSBC’s architect selection. The Board’s commitment to the project has been unwavering. The architectural team has extensive experience designing school buildings and campuses that maximize an effective learning environment comply with current standards and codes, address traffic flow, and complement the surrounding site.

Costs to be incurred this budget cycle will be well within the Project’s current fiscal year $2.5 million appropriation.

This project will encompass multiple phases. Schematic Design is the first phase of work in the architectural design process. Working closely with the CMSBC and school teams, SLAM will translate the CMS Ed Specs into spatial and architectural designs by exploring various ideas in order to achieve an optimal design solution. The CMSBC and the design team will ensure that all aspects of the Ed Specs are incorporated into the Project design.

As we work through the design phases, we will work closely with the community and will hold community engagement sessions in March and April. These engagement sessions are an enhancement to the existing opportunities for public input typically provided at the meetings of Town boards and commissions.

The CMSBC meets weekly on Tuesday mornings. Our meeting schedule, agenda, minutes, quarterly progress reports to the RTM, and other Project documents are publicly available on the Greenwich Public Schools website at greenwichschools.org/CMSBC.

Given the state of the CMS building, we will continue our diligent work until the new campus is complete and the CMS student community has a new building to call home.

Sincerely,

The Central Middle School Building Committee