Construction begins on $106.1M project

BY BRIAN DONAHUE
Staff Writer

+ 14 new classrooms + new plumbing, electrical and heating systems + new and safer pickup and drop-off areas + extra gymnasium/all-purpose room A years-in-the-making plan to bring additions to East Brunswick schools and ease elementary and middle school overcrowding is finally under way.

School officials held groundbreaking ceremonies Friday at the Central and Lawrence Brook elementary schools, which will be expanded and renovated over the next year and a half. The project, part of a $106.1 million referendum approved by township voters in December 2004, also includes the construction of a mostly new, larger Hammarskjold Middle School.

"Believe it or not, we're right on schedule," said Patricia LaDuca, coordinator of community relations and programs for the school district. "It takes this long for the plans to go through and for the bidding process."

Construction has already begun at Central School, Cranbury Road, which at 55 years old is the district's oldest facility. Work is expected to begin at the 47-year-old Lawrence Brook School, Sullivan Way, during the next couple of weeks.

+ 12 new classrooms + new plumbing, electrical and heating systems + new and safer pickup and drop-off areas + extra gymnasium/all-purpose room Central School will receive 14 new classrooms and Lawrence Brook will get 12. Both buildings will have new plumbing, electrical and heating systems; new and safer pickup and drop-off areas; and an extra gymnasium/all-purpose room.

"That's key, because right now gym classes can't run during lunch," LaDuca said.

Each of the two schools will be brought up to a student enrollment of 550, allowing for significant improvement in terms of student distribution - those who should be attending Central or Lawrence Brook but are bused elsewhere because those schools are full, will be brought back. As a result, many other students district-wide will also be brought back to their home schools, though not all.

School officials said they will be able to reduce class sizes at all eight of East Brunswick's elementary schools as a result of the additions.

+ new school to be built + old school to be demolished, except for the 1996 addition + capacity expanded to 1,700 students Construction, aided by $24.7 million in state funds and continuing "right on budget," according to LaDuca, is scheduled to be completed by September 2007 at Central and Lawrence Brook.

The Hammarskjold work will begin later this spring and is to be done by September 2008.

School officials have described Hammarskjold, which was built in 1961 and is East Brunswick's only middle school, as the most pressing problem in terms of overcrowding. The school has a capacity of 800, but more than 1,500 students are currently enrolled, some housed in two trailers that each contain three classrooms. The upcoming project will expand the school's capacity to 1,700.

Students will remain in the current Hammarskjold facility until the entire project is completed. The existing school, with the exception of its 1996 addition, will then be demolished.

Hammarskjold will still have two soccer fields after construction, but space constraints will mean that the existing ballfield will be replaced by an overlay ballfield on one of the soccer fields.

With much of the overall construction taking place during the school year, LaDuca said contractors will keep disturbances to a minimum, focusing mostly on work outside the existing school buildings. Workers at Central kept a particularly low-key presence last week when third- and fourth-graders were undergoing New Jersey standardized testing, she noted.

Seacoast Builders Corp., Freehold, is performing the work at Central, while G&P Parlamas, Allenhurst, received the contract for Lawrence Brook. Turner Construction Co. is managing the overall project for the district.

While the Board of Education initially planned to hold a second bond referendum that would serve as a sequel to the current project and bring additions to the other elementary schools, it remains unclear whether that plan will go to voters any time soon. Though the cost of the second referendum was to be significantly less than the first, school officials are reluctant to move forward because the state's school construction fund has been diminished. LaDuca said Superintendent of Schools Jo Ann Magistro and the school board are waiting to see how much aid will be made available.

"Dr. Magistro doesn't feel it's right to go out to the voters until we find out if there will be school construction money," she said.