Preliminary estimates said it will cost $30 million to convert the former Chicopee High School into a middle school.
The old Chicopee High School is shown on the last day of classes before closing in 2004.CHICOPEE – Architects hired to design the renovations of the former Chicopee High School are estimating the project will start and finish a year later than originally anticipated.
It is estimating the cost of the project will be about $30 million, but true price of the renovations will not be known until architect plans are finished and the project goes out to bid, said Mayor Michael D. Bissonnette.
The School Department and the city are planning to renovate the four-story building and convert it into a middle school to replace the Fairview Veterans Memorial Middle School.
Caolo & Bieniek Associates Inc., the architects for the Chicopee High project, completed the feasibility study of the school last month, which included a schedule and cost estimate, and submitted it to the Massachusetts School Building Authority, which is overseeing the project and providing 80 percent of its funding.
“We thought it would be a little quicker, but because we have to get approvals from the state before each step before we go forward, it has been delayed,” said William M. Zaskey, a city councilor and chairman of the Chicopee Building Renovation Committee.
The committee had a goal of having the building ready for students in September 2014. Now the completion date has been pushed back to August of 2015, the study said.
Zaskey said the committee expected there would be delays because the project is unique and the state process has changed since the city opened two new high schools.
Bissonnette said the project is especially complicated because the school, which is about 100 years old, has been renovated three times.
“I want to do this right instead of doing it fast, so it will serve our students for at least 50 years,” he said.
The exact cost will not be available for some time, but if the $30 million estimate is accurate, it will mean the city will spend $6 million on the renovation, and the state will pay the remaining $24 million.
The next step is for the architects to create a schematic design of the renovation project and submit it to the building committee for review.
“There will be a list of everything that should be done and a priority list of things that can be done,” Zaskey said.
The building committee members and School Building Authority will review the list and determine what work must be done, what should be done and what is unnecessary.
Improvements to meet building codes, for example, must be done; the state authority also has certain standards that have to be met.
Zaskey said the committee is working with Superintendent Richard W. Rege Jr. to discuss if walls have to be moved to meet the needs of a middle school.