Fairport board updates STEAM addition, plans athletic lighting; community meeting set for June 10

Board construction and finance presenters told the Fairport Central School District board on May 28 that the STEAM addition is watertight and on track for an early‑August turnover so teachers can move in before the start of the school year, while site work — including new tennis courts, a track surfacing and a parking‑lot reconfiguration — will continue through summer and into fall.

Project presenters said build‑out of the STEAM addition’s interior is underway and that remaining construction contingency and contract allowances are modest: about $582,000 and $462,000 respectively. The team described summer work on patios, an added entry lane and speed‑table crosswalks intended to improve traffic flow and pedestrian safety around the high school.

The board discussed using leftover referendum funds — described by staff as a “spend‑down” of capital‑project dollars tied to the 2023 project — to add poles and pole bases for athletic field lighting now, rather than deferring pole installation. “Ordering it and taking care of that at this time will prevent any cracks and damage to the track and the newly surfaced track,” a project representative said, noting conduit and trenching were already included in the project scope and the additional purchase would add poles and foundations.

Presenters said buying lighting equipment in bulk could also enable better pole siting: “When we… move them with the new lighting that Musco has been talking about, it'll actually get out of our parking lot,” one speaker said, referring to a vendor demonstration of newer fixtures intended to limit light spill. The district emphasized that sound‑management guidance, rather than light pollution, has been the primary concern for adjacent neighbors; the board scheduled a June 10 meeting for residents who live behind the multipurpose fields to review proposed sound regulations and answer questions.

Officials outlined the scheduling constraints for athletic facilities: the new tennis courts are top‑coated and will need short curing windows before play; the turf and turf‑adjacent grass areas require two growing seasons to fully recover before some field events resume. The board’s construction team also said it is coordinating transformer and electrical service work so athletic‑field utilities will be ready once the track and storage building structures are in place.

The board and staff agreed to continue community outreach and to return to the board for award of related spend‑down bids in July, while staff continue to allocate expenses to the appropriate proposition lines in the capital project budget. The next procedural steps are the June community engagement session and upcoming bid awards, with staff noting a state cost‑report deadline tied to capital‑project aid.