Work on East Hampton High School could begin this winter

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New bids for the East Hampton High School expansion project are expected to come in sometime next month and construction could start as early as this winter, depending on weather conditions, school district officials said last week.

“It’s a pleasure to finally get the project started,” said School District Superintendent Raymond Gaultieri.

The high school expansion and renovation, which is based on a “green” concept with a dramatic glass curtain wall letting in translucent light at a new high-ceiling cafeteria, is part of a larger construction project for all three school buildings in the district. Construction is already underway at the John M. Marshall Elementary School and the East Hampton Middle School.

The overall $79-million project to expand and renovate all three buildings was approved by taxpayers in a referendum in 2006.

The exterior of the high school will look different, with the high-ceilinged cafeteria as the centerpiece. The elementary school will have two new additions in the back, a classroom and a new cafeteria. The work going on at the Middle School is confined to “above the ceiling and behind the wall,” as Mr. Gaultieri described it, with the primary work being upgrades to heating and ventilation systems. Those upgrades will also be made to the elementary school.

No work was done to the exterior of the Middle School because it is considered a historic building, Mr. Gualtieri said.

Space for district offices, now temporarily at 231 Pantigo Road, will be created in the high school on either the first or second floors, depending on how the building is finally designed. Space will also be made for high school offices.

The plan for the high school, the largest construction job of the three buildings, includes a renovation of the existing facility and a 90,000-square-foot expansion. The school’s square footage will be increased by 60 percent, allowing for the new cafeteria and student lounge, classrooms, multi-purpose community spaces, and a new library media center. A hallmark of the design will be the triple-glazed windows in the cafeteria for day lighting and controlling heat.

Mr. Gualtieri declined to say what the budget was for the high school addition and renovation. An article in Construction News, in February 2008, put the figure at $58 million.

Some work has already begun at the high school. The gym, for example, has received a face-lift. New lights were installed, and the entire space has been repainted. New bleachers are in, artificial turf for the playing field is in, and the tennis courts were moved further away from the school building to make way for the expansion.

The first bids for the high school project were submitted in July, but were rejected in August by the School Board for two reasons: the bids were too high, and the district received bids for only three areas of construction: general contracting, electric, and plumbing. It received no bids for heating, ventilation and air-conditioning, so all bids were rejected, Mr. Gualtieri said.

Revised design specifications from the architects should be ready in a few weeks, and new bids will be requested at that time, he said.

“Then, on a certain date, probably sometime in November, we get together and open the envelopes and see who is the lowest bidder. The bids should be awarded at the first board meeting in December if all goes according to plan,” he said.

When the bids were rejected, architects from the firm of Beatty, Harvey and Associates, which has an office in Riverhead, were asked to revise and “scale back” the original design, he said.

“We asked them to lower the height of the cafeteria, to take out a couple of classrooms, so we’re putting a project out there that is considerably smaller, and we’re hoping the economy will cause the bids to come in lower this time,” Mr. Gualtieri said.

One possibility for the architects to consider is keeping the addition to one story, with the district and school offices and classrooms all on one floor, Sandra Vorpahl, School Board president, said.

“The idea of the green building concept hasn’t changed. That’s our first priority—keeping it green,” she said. “We’d like to bring in pretty much what we told the community we’re going to build. We’re hoping that the bids come in low so we can keep what we’ve decided we are going to do.”

Mr. Gualtieri said the green building may or may not save money in the long run. “This is a different way of construction. It’s hard to say how much you would save, given the fact that this is an expansion of the existing building, so the savings would have to be proportionate to the size of the building.”