Sam Gurwitt Photo
After years of delays and project expansions, Hamden is set to begin long-awaited renovations of the Alice Peck School before Thanksgiving.
At a meeting Wednesday evening, the Hamden Legislative Council unanimously approved a $5 million renovation contract for the project with Trumbull-based RFJ Associates, LLC, also known as Tomlinson Hawley Patterson.
Alice Peck was a neighborhood elementary school until 2003, when it closed during a redistricting effort. Since then, it has housed special education and pre-school classrooms.
In 2015, State Rep. Mike D’Agostino helped the town secure a $2.5 million grant from the state. The town planned a $2.5 million project that would involve redoing the roof and making lighting improvements.
Town officials then met with the state and presented their plans for the school.
Originally, said Superintendent Jody Goeler, he and other administrators had intended to create a program for students with high-functioning autism. Goeler said that state officials told him they liked the plans, and that they wanted the town to develop them further and broaden the scope of the project to encompass all of the needs of the school.
What began as a $2.5 million project then became a $6.5 million project. Goeler said that in order to help pay for the project, the state kicked in an additional $1 million on top of its original $2.5 million grant, and allowed the town to use about $1 million in alliance grant funding for the renovation. The town then bonded about $1.9 million in 2018 to cover the rest.
Architect Bill Silver, who contracted with the town to design the renovations, said that the expanded scope includes redoing the heating and air conditioning systems, as well as countless other smaller items.
Legislative Council Education Committee Chair Lauren Garrett told colleagues that when her daughter was in pre-school at Alice Peck about 10 years ago, the roof leaked. She said that teachers have to place buckets on the floor beneath where water drips down from the ceiling.
Now, she said, urging the council to pass the contract, “we can put a roof on this school that has been leaking for 10 years.”
The town originally went out to bid for a contractor this summer. When the bids came in over budget, the town asked Silver to find ways of lowering the cost of the project so the town could afford it. Silver said that among other changes, he made changes to heating and air-conditioning systems.
Bill Silver with Town Special Projects Director Julie Smith.
Once the project cost had been reduced, the town went out to bid again in October. Silver recommended RFJ because it was a low bidder and because it had completed similar projects throughout the region.
The project, Interim Finance Director and School Building Committee Chair Myron Hul explained to the council, has been plagued by delays. The first major delay, he said, happened when the state injected more money into the project and the town had to increase its scope. Second, he said, there was a miscommunication between the state and the town when the state was supposed to notify the town of its formal grant approval. Finally, he said, it added time to the project when contractor bids came in over budget and the town had to modify the project to bring it under the cost target.
As the clock ticked, the council and the Board of Education began to hear warnings that the project needed to advance or state funding might disappear. In February, D’Agostino appeared before the council to urge it to advance with the project, and a much larger construction project at the West Woods School. He said that the state needed to see progress by spring, or “all bets are off.”
RFJ now has a tight timeline to complete the project. It must complete it by mid-August of 2020 so that the building may be used for the 2020 – 2021 school year. First, said Silver, comes the roof. Rooves, he explained, cannot be redone in the dead of winter, so the contractor must complete it in November and December before moving on to other elements of the project.
Once complete, the school will contain pre‑K classrooms, special education classrooms, and a new “pyramid program” for young students with high social-emotional needs such as anxiety and disregulation. According to a business plan that Superintendent Jody Goeler submitted to the council, the district is seeing more students with “significant mental health and community-based needs.” The program would include wraparound services with a marriage and family therapist, in-home behavioral support staff, and a consulting psychiatrist who would all work with students and their families. Ideally, students in the program will transition into their neighborhood schools once they’re ready.
If seats are available in the program it may also accept students from other districts. Those towns would pay tuition to Hamden to send their students there. Though that feature was attractive to the state when it gave Hamden the grant, said Goeler, it is not a requirement of the grant.