Project Creep

Joe Greene forwarded to me an article written by Arlene Martinez in January of 2006 in the Morning Call (abstract is available here), titled "Growing pains for Nazareth Area".

In it the article states:

In anticipation of the projected growth, district officials recently unveiled an ambitious, multiyear building plan that carries a hefty price tag of $90 million.

Seven building projects are planned. Just one of them — a maintenance facility — has been approved, though the school board has expressed support for the construction of a new middle school.

The district would increase the property tax and borrow to pay for the projects.

It also notes that the largest of the projects is a new Middle School at $40.8 million. Today we know that the cost is about $15 million more than that figure.

The other projects noted in the article were:

• Maintenance facility $5.5 million.
• Technology center $4.8 million.
• Current MS transition to IS $192,000.
• "a high school media center which, on paper, rivals that of a university, and a new gymnasium, a combined $35.7 million. Both also would be ready between 2009 and 2010."
• "a new football stadium with an all-weather track and Astroturf, would cost about $7.2 million." OR " improvements to the existing facilities and field, would add $512,000 to the building budget."

While it does appear that the MS and new track with astroturf fields have been rolled into this one project, the $35.7 million for the new high school media center and gymnasium will be unavailable for the next 15 years or so as it was stated that the NASD will be $14-20 million below its debt ceiling during this period.

The problem is that the HS is going to be over capacity and the IS within 100 of capacity by 2015 (eight years down the road). The Media Center plan, while not my personal choice, is a plan to create more classroom spaces (by converting the library into classrooms, the gym into a library, and building a new gym).

We will need to add on to the HS and possibly the IS, but we won't have much money to do it. Now that the NASD has committed to the MS it will be important to learn what plans they have for the near future regarding these other two facilities. If the bids come back higher than expected for the MS we will have even less money for future expansion - and that is a major concern.