Region 1 School Construction Behind Schedule

Construction at the Region 1 elementary school site on Maple Avenue has resumed and at a feverish pace, as the district needs to make up for several weeks of lost time.

Earlier this month, district administrators said the Region 1 elementary school building project was thrown nearly 6 weeks off of its already tight time line by Upper Southampton Township.

Township officials said the district is simply laying the groundwork for deflecting the blame when they can’t deliver on their promise to open the school in September 2012.

Six Weeks Lost

At the Centennial School Board’s August Operations Committee Meeting, Assistant Superintendent of Operations William Gretton said the district submitted plans for approval to the township in a timely fashion, but several weeks lapsed before the district received any response.

“We provided submittals in May and we did not receive a response from (the township) until June 23,” he said.

Gretton said when the district did receive word, is wasn’t the approval they were waiting for, but rather a laundry list of items that would need to be fixed before a permit could be granted.

“We got those items together quickly and resubmitted,” he said “Then, there was an additional hold up and (the township still) wouldn’t issue a permit.”

Gretton said he felt the district was not receiving full cooperation from the township in expediting the process.

In an interview Wednesday afternoon, Township Manager Joe Golden expressed anger at the imposition that the township is not working with the district.

Golden said the building plans were first submitted in April and then returned to the district’s engineers on May 13. He said the district did not resubmit the plans with the requested corrections until June 17.

“In the meantime, we gave them the permission to start the earth work on the site – grading the area and moving the dirt and such,” he said.

“State law allows you to begin earth work without a permit, but it is extremely unusual for us to grant this type of approval; however, we did it for the school district,” he added.

Golden said the district had a lot of this earth work to do at the site, and they were busy working on it during the four weeks the township was waiting for the corrected plans.

Also during this time, there were a series of emails back and forth between the township’s engineer and the engineers from the school district, discussing the updates that needed to be made.

Golden said ultimately the township received the final version of the plans from the district on July 28. He said they were signed off on and returned just two days later.

“Two days is a pretty quick turn around for 20-plus pages of plans,” said Golden. “And remember, we have to check everything on them, not just what we asked to be changed.”

He said after this date the district had additional problems filing the documents with the county, as the plans were printed on the wrong sized paper.

“And that’s a big part of the problem,” said Golden. “Unfortunately, their engineer is from Pittsburgh and is not familiar with Bucks County requirements.”

Back at the Aug.3 meeting, Gretton told members of the school board there would be “a lot of finger pointing” if the board approached the township for answers. 

But some school board members were more concerned with the fact that they were not made unaware of the problems as they were transpiring.  

“I don’t care whose fault it is,” said School Board Member Mark Miller. “There is no time to make changes here if we don’t find about something when it is happening.”

“We are still living under the cloud of the previous administration,” Miller added. “I don’t care what walls Dr. Turnbaugh set up –

Miler said he is aware of several other school districts that have close communications between the board of school directors and their construction projects.

“They hear first hand what is going on. They don’t get filtered information,” he said.

Miller said going forward, as a representative for Region 1, he intends to sit in every meeting involving the Region 1 building project.

Construction Resumes

School Board Vice President Thomas Reinboth described the construction sounds coming from the Region 1 site as “joyful noise” at the board meeting Tuesday evening.

Gretton said the problems have been resolved and the district has procured the necessary permits to begin construction. He said work resumed this week and concrete footers for the building were in the process of being poured.

Both Miller and Gretton said representatives from the district met with the general contractor and found some ways to expedite the process.

Some of the methods mentioned were adding manpower and having crews work on multiple parts of the project simultaneously, rather than one part at a time. 

Gretton said there was no figure currently available for the cost of making up the lost time, but that any and all additional charges would be brought before the school board for consideration and approval.

He said the district is working closely with the contractors to identify places along the way where additional time can be made up, and that he is optimistic that the project will be back on schedule shortly.

“As long as the weather cooperates, we are hopeful to back on schedule in the next couple of weeks,” he said.