Ridge Hill School Project Scope Could Expand

Renovation work planned for this summer at could be more extensive than originally planned due to problems that have cropped up as of late, town officials said Monday at the Legislative Council's committee meetings.

The School Building Committee is overseeing the $1.2 million project and has recommended the town hire , whose offices are on Whitney Avenue, to administer the work.

But when the contract came before the council's Education Committee, some questioned the need for an architect. It was then that the additional issues came up, including the discovery of a crack running up one of the school building's walls and the buckling of the cafeteria floor.

"There's quite a bit of work being done that requires architectural work and engineering designs work," Facilities Director Mark Albanese said. 

The work is expected to take place over the summer, he said. On Monday the committee had before it a $65,000 contract for architectural services that had to be approved before the firm could start any substantial work, though it has started preliminary work, Albanese said.

But that price tag raised the eyebrows of some council members.

"I think $65,000 for an architect seems like an awful lot," Councilman Jack Kennelly said. 

"The project cannot go forward without an architect," said council president Jim Pascarella. "There is leakage in the skylights and the roofing and the floor in the cafeteria is buckling and it appears hollow underneath and needs to be tested."

The cost of fixing the cafeteria floor could eat up more than half of the $1.2 million budget, Pascarella said. 

"The architect also noticed a crack running up the side of the building," he said. "The purpose of this is to get the prices of what this is all going to cost.

Before the discovery of these problems, the project included other work that might have to be eliminated to make the project affordable, he said.

"What may end up happening once the remedy is ascertained is some of the work may not make the cut," Pascarella said, "or the price of the project will increase."

Plans to fill in "pits" in classrooms might have to be abandoned, he said. When the school was built in the 1970s, it was designed to have rooms with sections that were lower than the rest of the room that were used to teach groups of children. That method is no longer used, Albanese said, so school officials want to fill in those areas to make them level with the rest of the room in order to reclaim square footage.

"We may not end up filling in the pits," Pascarella said. "It may need to be cut."

"I totally understand where Mr. Kennelly is coming from," said council member Tom Rousseau, who also sits on the School Building Committee. "But this project is much more complicated than meets the eye -- there's a lot going on with that school and I will say that the School Building Committee will look very closely at everything."

Eventually the school is going to have to be replaced, he said, so the committee is not going to invest any more in this building than necessary.

"We have to prioritize everything, and making it a structurally secure building" is the top priority, Education Committee chairman John DeRosa said. "We need to get a structural engineer on board to look at the cafeteria floor -- it's buckling and we don't know what's going on so we need an architect on board."

The committee approved the contract but requested a section referring to the purchase of furniture, fixtures and equipment be removed since none of those purchases are planned.

The full council will vote on the contract's final approval next Monday at 7 p.m. in the Thornton Wilder Hall at the .