Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Capital Projects topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
District updates board on HVAC, field and high‑school addition; state aid review underway
Summary
Contractors and the district reported near completion of major HVAC and summer projects, opened bids for elementary renovations under budget, and described redesign steps to increase state building aid for the planned high‑school addition.
White Plains City School District construction managers and architects updated the Board of Education on Dec. 9 on progress across a multi‑year capital program, saying most summer projects are moving to final closeout and that the high‑school addition is being revised to maximize state building aid.
Chris Pearson of Bridal Construction and Joseph Serrano of H2M told the board that roughly 325 new HVAC units have been installed across the district and that only a small, single‑digit percentage remain under review for controls or overheating issues. Ridgeway Elementary’s air‑conditioning work is delayed by switchgear delivery; district staff said Ridgeway’s testing will wait until summer when the school is out.
Contractors reported successful bids opened for four elementary renovation projects (Church Street, George Washington, Mamaroneck and Ridgeway) on Nov. 20 and said all bids were responsible and came in under budget. Summer projects including fields, track, high‑school ceiling and lighting, and new bathrooms at George Washington are in punch‑list stages, the team said.
On the high‑school addition, architects and district staff told the board that initial state aid estimates from the State Education Department (SED) came back significantly lower than earlier projections. To increase aidable units, the district is replacing planned non‑instructional spaces in the addition — such as an IT office and other administrative rooms — with general classroom and special‑education spaces. Joseph Serrano said that change is intended to “maximize building aid within the addition” and that revised paperwork will be resubmitted to the state for updated calculations. The district said it expects a quicker turnaround now that construction documents are largely approved.
Speakers at the presentation thanked SED and regional partners for working closely with the district; H2M said they expect to reapply and to use savings from elementary projects and revised programmatic choices to close the previously projected gap in the high‑school budget. No board vote was taken on the design changes at the Dec. 9 meeting.
Ending: The district said it will circulate pre‑/post‑design diagrams and additional detail on the program revisions to board members and expects updated SED aid estimates after the reapplication is processed.
