Construction Update
Our massive construction project has been divided into three phases:
Phase I – A two-story addition will be built on what used to be our playground. In this new building, there will be:
5 kindergarten rooms
Instrumental music room
Computer lab
6 classrooms
6 special education rooms
Staff lounge
Reading/Language Arts room
Staff Development room
Guidance office
3 ESOL classrooms
Instructional Data Assistant office
Phase II – The north wing of our building (6 classrooms) will be torn down and rebuilt
Phase III – The front of the building will be torn down. In its place will be:
Linkages to Learning suite
New main office
New principal’s office
New assistant principal’s office
Conference room
New health suite
New workroom
Phone room
The latest on our construction from Cougar TV personalities, Lucas Rather and Ana Curic:
8-19-08:
During the last two weeks, our construction crew has:
Poured the floor of the first floor of the addition
Broken apart the trash room floor for new piping
Installed the new doors along the Liang/Nichols hallway
They will be out of the all-purpose room by this Thursday so our building service team can clean it.
Stair tower #2 (at the top of the gym ramp) is up.
In the next two weeks:
The sidewalk into the new courtyard will be poured
The dumpster will be removed
A construction fence will be erected along the sidewalk coming down from Oakmont St.
The footers will be poured for the 2nd story of the new building
The walls will be poured in the 1st floor classrooms of the new building
The trash room floor will be poured
8-4-08:
Here’s what I learned at this morning’s construction update meeting:
The retaining wall for the 1st floor of the new building has been back-filled
The power is back on (but there is still no AC)
They’ll be pouring the floor and walls of the first floor of the new building
The site has been excavated for the second floor of the new building
The second floor footers will soon be poured
They are still pushing for a Spring Break ’09 move into the new building
We have a new construction superintendent
MCPS cleaning crews will be working the week of Aug. 11 to get the building ready for staff’s return
The kindergarten ramp has changed in appearance. Because the lower part of that area will connect to the new building, the right side of the ramp now has flat flooring which leads to 3 steps, and then the ramp. The left side is all ramp (Have I confused you thoroughly?)
At the gym end of the Moran-Nichols hallway, there are now 3-4 steps going down to the ramp area. The building plans called for a change in elevation at that location, and that’s the reason for the steps
I think you’ll be amazed at the changes that have taken place over the summer!
7-25-08:
During the past 2 weeks:
All of the doorways and doors along the Liang-Nichols hallway have been reset
Additional footers have been poured
Retaining walls have been cement blocked
The chiller has been moved off of its new pad
The power has been turned off
During the next 2 weeks:
The power will be turned back on
Plumbing pipes will be run
The new chiller pad will be demolished and a new one will be poured
The chiller will be reset on the second new chiller pad
Walls will be waterproofed
Maybe – Footers will be poured on the top of the hill for the 2nd story of the new building
Other items:
Permanent white boards in the Liang-Nichols hallway will not be installed until November. In the meantime, those rooms will have temporary white boards
A Spring Break move into the new building is now questionable. It may turn out to be a summer move
The administrative offices will move back to WGES on August 11. It is likely that teachers will not be able to get in before August 19
6-23-08:
The chiller pad is in its final stages and the chiller will be moved on Thursday.
The hallway ceilings have all been torn apart and will remain uncovered by ceiling tiles when we return at the end of the summer.
The door frames and chalkboards in the Nichols-Liang hallway have all been removed.
White marker boards will replace the chalkboards.
The mason is laying block down near the gym.
The kindergarten ramp windows (that faced the old playground) have been removed and those openings have been filled in with cement blocks.
5-28-08: The underpinning beneath the Kindergarten ramp wall is now complete. The reason there has been no activity in recent days is that the next step involves concrete. The concrete subcontractor is currently tied up on other jobs and won’t be able to get back here until next Tuesday, so we should expect nothing much happening until then…
5-9-08: Our construction superintendent from Keller Bros. told me this morning that they will be back on the job on Monday! They have adjusted the plans to use the footers as they are currently placed.
5-8-08: A few important pieces of information:
The problem with the depth of the footers is not limited to the retaining wall mentioned earlier. It applies to all of the footers that have been poured so far.
There is a plan to cut off our electricity as of June 18 so that the work can be done to move the chiller and switch over the electrical panel boxes. The outage will last for 30-60 days. We are advocating loudly right now for them to set the office up in a portable over the summer so we can remain on-site, rather than be relocated to another school. We are also pushing for the work to be completed in 30 days, so our building service staff will have time to do their summer cleaning.
We may lose our cable TV before school is out.
5-5-08: I’m sure you’ve noticed that absolutely nothing has been happening out back for over a week now. It turns out that the footers that were poured for the retaining wall outside of Nancy Nichols’ and Chris’ rooms were set at the wrong depth. If they continue working, the retaining wall itself would be at the wrong height. I’m not sure why this is taking so long to resolve, but that’s the reason for the delay.
4-16-08: At yesterday’s construction progress meeting, our contractors said the following would be worked on during the next two weeks:
Masons will start laying block on both of the new retaining walls
The remaining footers will be poured
The old AC unit (outside of Katie Larkin’s room) will be removed and they’ll start the pad for the chiller in that same location.
3-31-08: I just got back from our biweekly construction progress meeting. During the last 2 weeks, they’ve:
Started underpinning the ramp wall
Installed the storm drains and had them inspected
Finished the necessary pruning on some of the trees and fertilized others (part of the Park and Planning requirements)
Moved the sanitary sewer out from under the building (which is what caused us to lose the kindergarten and upstairs staff bathrooms)
During the next 2 weeks, they plan to:
Drop re-bar into the ground
Stake out the Phase 1 building
Pour the footers
Continue the underpinning of the ramp wall
Have the site crew finish their work (bulldozers, etc.)
Begin to build the retaining wall in the new courtyard
Remove the fence around the chiller and replace it with a temporary fence
We are on a roll!!
3-20-08: The door that is halfway up the kindergarten ramp is now totally out of commission. Of course, we haven’t been using it since the construction fence went up, as it was inside the construction area. However, that door is now blocked off from the inside and boarded up from the outside, as they are beginning to shore up that exterior ramp wall.
3-18-08: At yesterday’s construction progress meeting, it was shared that:
We will soon be losing the use of the kindergarten bathrooms in Nancy Madej’s and Darby’s rooms, as well as the staff bathroom at the top of the ramp (they need to be taken “off-line” so the sewer lines can be re-routed).
They’ll begin excavating for the actual building and putting in the footers by the end of the week.
They’ll begin underpinning (adding extra structural strength) the wall along the ramp.
They’re going to be building the pad outside of Larkin/Leety/Wells’ room so it is ready to receive the chiller after it’s moved.
3-14-08: Yesterday and today, the workers are removing and installing storm drains in the area of the new courtyard. They apologize for the noise outside of the surrounding classrooms, but hope everyone understands that it can’t be avoided.
3-5-08: There will be no heavy equipment use today. The soaked ground makes it too dangerous. The lower part of the sediment pond fence will be moved today so that our access to the field is a little easier and a lot safer. Also today, structural engineers are evaluating the wall along the ramp up to Nancy Madej’s room. The integrity of the side of the wall near the chiller is questionable…
2-28-07: Click here for the latest pictures from our construction site.
2-27-08: Take a look at the huge pile of concrete on our lower blacktop…All of those pieces were dug up from underground as they dug our sediment pond! Apparently, that location was used as a dumping ground when the last addition/renovation was done!
Today, the staff bathroom at the top of the ramp (across from Nancy Madej’s room) will be closed for a period of time. They will be removing the toilet from that bathroom, and putting a camera down the exposed pipe so they can see exactly where that pipe goes. Supposedly, that pipe goes underneath the ramp and comes out near the chiller. However, when the contractors dug at the location where the plans showed that pipe to be, they were unable to find it. The use of a camera today should clearly show where this pipe goes…I’ve been told the whole process should take about an hour.
2-20-08: The construction fencing is now complete. Today, they hope to begin to dig the sediment pond, which will be right outside the ramp leading down to the gym.
2-15-08: The ground is still too wet for them to cut the actual construction road through today…they’re now hoping for Monday. They will be working today, though, in the area of the construction road, continuing to make preparations for it. The mock-up is now built (showing the materials that they’ll be using). They’ll be building a protective structure around it.
2-11-08: Today, some of our playground equipment is being removed to make way for the new building!
2-7-08: The four tall cypress trees toward the back of the upper blacktop were removed this morning to make way for the construction access road!
2-5-08: We are in “go” mode! Today, a silt fence is being erected and our upper blacktop is being partially torn up…
On January 10, 2008, the Sediment Control Permit was issued for our construction project! Parts of our playground have been staked off and fenced so that construction can begin. The upper blacktop area of our playground will be completely closed off, as this will be the contractor’s staging location, where they will set up their construction trailer and all of their supplies and materials. We have waited a very long time for the work to begin and feel very confident that it will begin soon!