IMAGE GALLERY: Goodyear School Project 98 Percent Done

Students’ desks began to arrive at the new Monday, the next step toward the school’s opening.

“We’re 98 percent there,” city Building Inspector Thomas Quinn Jr. told Woburn Patch Monday about the school project. The remaining 2 percent of the job involves furniture and fixtures, he said. 

The construction management company for the project, Gilbane Building Co., “pushed” and the building committee “worked to get this (project) delivered in a perfect way,” Quinn said.

The punch list, or items that must be fixed or adjusted, is short, according to Quinn.

Quinn took Woburn Patch on a tour inside the school Monday afternoon to see what this stage of the school project looks like. Boxes of unassembled furniture sat in some hallways. In one classroom, student desks were being put together, their tops face down, ready for legs.

If you’re heading into the heart of the city on Montvale Avenue, the school is one of the properties on four corners, including a bank and two “well-kept properties,” Quinn pointed out, that say, “Welcome to Woburn.” 

He started the tour in the library or media center, the “cornerstone of the school.”  A wall of windows bring in natural light from the east.  The only moveable furniture in the room Monday: a ladder.

The school is “very well thought out,” Quinn said.

Each classroom has a smart board.

The school is air conditioned; windows also open to preset heights.

Cubbies await students in the lower grades; upper grade students have lockers.

The floor of the art room is polished concrete that looks like stone.

Outside, synthetic turf has been laid on the play field behind the school.  Near the more visible corner of Montvale Avenue and Central Street, the Goodyear School sign—the original sign, Quinn said, has been unwrapped. The remaining piece of fencing near that corner will be removed, as will the weeds around the evergreen tree at the corner.

“It’s great,” Quinn said of the project. “Everything with this one has been positive from the beginning.”   Quinn attributed that result to the people on the building committee, including Mayor Scott Galvin, and the workers who labored on the project. Many of them are from Woburn, he told Patch during an early-construction walk-through in February, even before interior walls were drywalled.

“This was a really enjoyable job,” Quinn concluded.

The section of gym floor damaged by water from the new air conditioning system is an insurance issue, Quinn said. It will “absolutely not” impede the start of school at the Goodyear, he said.

Teachers will be able to bring their own materials into the school after an occupancy permit is granted, Quinn said. Timing-wise, occupancy permits are issued after furniture, fixtures and equipment are in place, he explained. That permit should be issued “well in advance,” Quinn said, “of the start of school.” School will start, Quinn said, the Thursday after Labor Day.