High school construction work on schedule

June 21, 2007|by JENNIFER FITCH

WAYNESBORO, Pa. - While Waynesboro Area Senior High School students might be enjoying a summer without schoolwork, contractors are continuing theirs at the site of the $46 million renovation and expansion project.

Construction efforts at the high school remain on schedule, and there haven't been any significant surprises, district Superintendent Barry Dallara said.

Workers over the next several weeks will be laying foundations and starting to construct the walls of the school's 108,000-square-foot addition, Dallara said. Passers-by "will continue to see the new addition take shape and form," he said.

The school's addition will have a three-court gymnasium and auditorium with mezzanine level, both of which have been designed to accommodate 1,600 students at a time.

Passers-by also will see the athletics fields being enlarged and seeded over the next month. Three fields - two on East Second Street and one between the middle and high schools - were included in a $95,000 bid accepted Tuesday by the school board.

"There is asbestos abatement going on in the auditorium," Dallara said. "I think the phasing schedule requires them to be done by the end of August."

The seats have been removed from the auditorium, which will become the cafeteria when the renovation is complete in April 2009.

The school's existing media center will become classrooms, and the cafeteria will be a library. The addition will convert the school into a four-story campus.

Asbestos has been removed from the rest of the building, which opened in the 1960-61 school year.

Know more in 30 seconds

The issue: The Waynesboro Area School District is in the midst of a $46 million construction project to renovate and expand the high school.

What's happened: Officials broke ground for the school's new wing in January 2007, but workers had already been on the site to remove asbestos from the existing building.

What's next: The foundation and structural walls will soon take shape for the addition. Asbestos is being removed from the auditorium over the summer.

|

|

|