Olentangy Schools: Construction season heating up, on schedule, on budget
Summertime is construction time for Olentangy Schools.
While the district’s largest building project is Olentangy Berlin Middle School, which has been under construction since last summer and is on schedule to open for the 2023-24 school year, numerous other projects are underway this summer, said Jeff Gordon, the district’s director of business management and facilities.
Berlin Middle School is on Piatt Road, just south of Berlin Station Road and close to Olentangy Berlin High School.
Despite widespread supply-chain issues, construction of the school is on schedule and on budget, Gordon said.
The roof is completed, as is most of the exterior masonry and veneer.
“We’re getting it pretty air-tight,” he said.
Classrooms are being framed as well.
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HVAC installation will begin soon, setting the stage for the installation of condition-sensitive materials, including the wood gym floor, he said.
Gordon credited the district’s use of design prototypes for helping control schedule and cost. Berlin is the third middle school to be built using basically the same design, he said, following Hyatts and Berkshire.
“It’s a cost-effective model and a design we like,” he said.
Unlike Hyatts and Berkshire middle schools, Berlin won't be linked to an adjacent elementary school with a short corridor of flex classrooms. As a result, Berlin will have eight more classrooms, Gordon said.
Principal Nathan Davis said non-construction preparation for the school’s opening is proceeding, as well. The hiring process will begin this fall, he said, and furniture and color choices are being made in conjunction with contractors and district committees.
Berlin Middle School is the second of three buildings funded by a bond issue-levy package approved by voters in 2020. The first was Shale Meadows Elementary School, which was opened at the start of the 2021-22 school year. The third is to be another elementary school – the district’s 17th – which the school board recently scheduled to open in 2024.
Gordon said the district plans to put the project out for bid in the fall, and construction still is not likely to begin until the spring of 2023.
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Seeking bids and hiring a contractor early, along with using the district’s elementary school design prototype, will help control costs in the event of additional supply-chain issues, according to Gordon.
A site for the 17th elementary school has not been selected, district spokesperson Amanda Beeman said, but the process is underway. Available land and enrollment projections are both considerations, she said.
Beeman said redistricting for Berlin Middle School would account, as much as possible, for that next elementary school, too.
Other projects include updates and renovations throughout the district that were part of that same 2020 bond-levy package, according to Gordon. They include collaborative spaces being added at Olentangy and Olentangy Liberty high schools, similar to the one at Berlin High School, he said. The multiuse space is to be where the previous computer labs were in both buildings.
The district’s elementary schools, except for Shale Meadows, will receive updates to their media centers, Gordon said, and four schools will have upgrades made to their playgrounds.
The district also is renovating its central offices and expanding its west transportation center this summer, Gordon said.
Lastly, Gordon cited several roofing projects and other maintenance that would be needed as buildings constructed more than 10 years ago start to show their age.
The 2022-23 school year begins Aug. 18.
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This article originally appeared on ThisWeek: Olentangy Schools: Construction season heating up, on schedule, budget
