The Big Build Is Ahead of Schedule
Deep in dust and yellow tape, work at high school ‘aggressive, well managed’
(11/26/2009) Construction at East Hampton High School has been running so smoothly that administrators now anticipate that the project will be
 Kate Maier
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completed a full year earlier than had been expected.
If all goes according to plan, by September the dust will have settled and students will be welcomed back to a shining new high school, the first in the state to be commissioned in compliance with Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards.
This is thanks in part to “a very aggressive but very well-managed and very well-executed” schedule taken on by Pavlak, the general contractor responsible for the bulk of construction, Eric Woellhof, the facilities manager at the high school, said.
From the outside, the school building looks like something of a war zone, although teachers and students there have been affected as minimally as possible by the obvious signs of construction around them. Inside, ceiling tiles are missing, dust abounds, and hallways are cordoned off with yellow tape in some areas, but the school community has taken it in stride.
“We’re managing,” said Joseph Vasile-Cozzo, the district’s athletic director. He has taken extra care to detail plans for teams visiting the campus, to make sure they are directed to the right places.
“We’re just trying to deal with the congestion and hazards of construction that are up there,” he said. “So far everybody has been great, and it’s gone pretty smoothly.”
Mr. Vasile-Cozzo’s department has already reaped some benefits from the project. This is the second year that teams have been able to play on a synthetic turf field.
“We’ve very rarely had a rainout, and it’s multi-use,” he said, meaning various teams, including football, soccer, field hockey, and lacrosse, can play on it. “The playing surfaces are just a benefit to our whole athletic department, and the community can use the track, too. Anytime that we’re not there, they can definitely run on the track.”
Last year, the gymnasium was spruced up with new bleachers, new lighting, a new sound system, and a fresh coat of paint.
Mr. Vasile-Cozzo is also excited about a refurbished baseball field, which came about thanks to a donation from Patrick Bistrian, Whitmores Nursery, and Lillie Irrigation. “The complete field was lowered, leveled, and moved. There is new sod and new clay and a new irrigation system, which really created dimensions fit for a varsity field now,” he said.
By next year, there will be a multipurpose room and auxiliary gym to replace the wrestling room presently in the basement. It will offer better ventilation for wrestling practices and dance classes. A fitness center is to be added as well.
While foundations and steel beams protruding from the north side of the building are the most visible signs of construction from the street, an addition of 12 classrooms, including an all-purpose room, has nearly been completed at the back of the school. According to Mr. Woellhof, “the classrooms on the tennis court end of the building are completely enclosed, and they are working on interior finishes.”
Inside, caution tape and padlocked doors bar students from the construction of those classrooms.
“I’m hoping to transition movement into those rooms by the start of the second semester” at the end of January, Cheryl Edholm, the principal, said. “As far as I know the computers and the desks are being ordered.” The hope is that classes that continue to meet in two portable units on campus will be moved into the building by then.
“There will be significant amounts of transitioning as we go through this whole process,” she said, with some teachers being shuffled from room to room before settling into more permanent homes at the start of the next school year.
The nearly completed wing is to be the home of two new science labs and two computer labs. Digital imaging and art classrooms, including a photography lab and darkroom, are also part of the project. When all is said and done, the band, orchestra, and chorus will each have their own rehearsal space, and there will be individual instrument practice rooms as well.
The performing arts department will have a bona fide box office to sell tickets to shows. According to Deb Mansir, the school’s community service coordinator, that space would double as a school store where Bonac sweatshirts and other paraphernalia would be sold.
Mr. Woellhof said construction crews are racing to get walls and a roof onto the addition nearest to the football field before the cold weather starts. “They really want to get it done and closed in before the winter. Once the masonry is up and the roof is on, they can continue to work inside.”
That area of the building will have a new suite of administrative offices, alleviating the need to rent space on Pantigo Road, which the district has done since a fire in a portable unit housing the offices made it uninhabitable a couple of years ago. The skeleton of that portable unit has since been razed and the spot covered over with a huge parking lot, which was also completed a year ahead of schedule.
New kitchen facilities and a cafeteria are also in the works on the north end. The school’s present cafeteria is to be turned into a library over the summer, and the present library will become three new classrooms with a new information technology center attached.
The bulk of a $79 million bond taxpayers approved to pay for the districtwide expansion project has been allocated for the high school project. With a new fifth-grade wing, cafeteria, and library, work at the John M. Marshall Elementary School has been finished, and a “punch list” of small items to be completed at the middle school is also near completion.
According to Thomas Lamorgese, the middle school principal, students are benefiting from three new science rooms, a renovated library and family and consumer science room, and an eco-friendly lighting scheme.
Sandra Vorpahl, the school board president, said on Tuesday that she could not say whether the project would come in under budget. “We haven’t really discussed it. We don’t want to jinx ourselves,” she said. “We’re ahead of schedule, and if we come in under budget that would be great. I’m sure the taxpayers would be tickled pink.”
For the time being, “it’s very exciting,” she said. “Every time I go there, there is more. I was there for a soccer game and they were putting up the steel, and when I came back for volleyball the bricks were up. It’s all happening very fast,” she said.
On Dec. 22, the board will ask taxpayers to approve another bond, this time in the amount of $4.5 million to pay for a facility to house the district’s buses. An opportunity to buy the building and lot, on King Street in East Hampton Village, did not come about until recently.