POTTSTOWN PA – If it decides to proceed with the expansion and renovation of Ringing Rocks Elementary School, the Pottsgrove School District Board of School Directors learned Tuesday (March 23, 2010), the project’s more finely tuned $17.1 million cost will include a geothermal heating system that once was considered optional but now is an integral part of the proposal.
Ringing Rocks Elementary School's east facade.
At least one director, Robert Lindgren, again advocated Tuesday – as he has in months past – that the district scrap current plans for Ringing and undertake a far more modest project there priced at less than half the architect’s estimate. “There’s still time to reconsider this,” Lindgren contended. “We haven’t borrowed any money. We haven’t broken any ground.”
While there was no indication a majority of his colleagues agree, there was renewed discussion about the administration’s vision of needs at Ringing, the project’s cost in light of worries about the economy, and its overall role in a 2010-2011 district budget in which directors are still struggling to close a gap between recommended expenses and anticipated revenues.
During the course of its meeting, the board:
- Received a new report from Gilbert Architects of Lancaster PA that offered the most detailed information now available on specific costs involved in the Ringing expansion;
- Learned the geothermal system was locked into construction plans because of structural limitations in the existing building;
- Acknowledged that changing the heating system, or rethinking the entire project, would delay it for several months;
- Reached tentative consensus on a preferred method of financing the project if it moves ahead as currently planned; and
- Heard that environmental tests will be conducted this week at St. Pius X High School as the district pursues leasing that building as an option to house Ringing students during construction.
The refined total estimated cost of Ringing as designed now stands at $17,171,461, Gilbert Project Manager Rod Frey reported. The amount – several hundred thousand dollars less than the $17.84 million initially suggested – includes the geothermal equipment that is said to take advantage of constant underground temperatures to reduce heating and cooling costs.
Geothermal was considered necessary, district Facilities Director Michael Katzenmoyer said, in part due to space requirements for air handling duct work in older portions of the building. That disappointed director April Kontostathis who, since public meetings last year, had pushed for ensuring the system was only an alternative choice.
“This means that we’re into geothermal 100 percent at this point, I take it,” Kontostathis observed. Katzenmoyer agreed. “If we try to re-design it for natural gas now,” Lindgren later remarked, “we’ll never meet any of the deadlines” outlined for Ringing’s construction. “We’re set to go down this path,” he said, “or we don’t start building.”
Then Lindgren quietly argued for the latter.
“This is an unprecedented time. There’s a great degree of uncertainty going forward” in the economy, in the district’s future student population, and in projected savings from a new building’s technological efficiencies, Lindgren said. “I’d rather take a $7 million bet” on simply upgrading documented physical plant needs at Ringing, he added, “than a $17 million bet” on the project as presented.
“It’s unfortunate that all this stuff is coming together at this time,” board Treasurer Fred Remelius conceded. However, he proposed deferring any take-it-or-leave-it decision on a Ringing re-build until the board “gets a better picture of where this all fits” into next year’s budget. “We could have a new building,” Remelius said, “but we also have to know we’re going to have the teachers that go into it.”
Board President Michael Neiffer declined, for the time being, to take what he called a “straw poll” on board members’ sentiments about current plans for Ringing. Other parts of the budget must be presented, Neiffer said, before the board had a clear understanding of financial problems if faces next year.
Directors tentatively agreed, though, that if the district were to borrow money to finance any work at Ringing, they would opt for a method involving what Business Administrator David Nester called “wrap-around payments” with predictably reliable annual principal and interest costs.
Related (to Ringing Rocks Elementary School renovations):
- How Estimated Costs For Ringing Shape Up
- Less Is More In School Project, Planners Learn
- Bids Sought For Ringing Project Asbestos Removal
- Ringing Relocation Decision Possible In Two Weeks
- Restaurant, Ringing Projects Win Conditional Uses
- Ringing Rocks, Restaurant Hearing Topics Tonight
- Pottsgrove Student Enrollment: Up? Yes. Down? Yes Again
- Green Discussion At Ringing Results In Red Faces
- Pottsgrove, Archdiocese Still Discussing Pius Lease
- Ringing Rocks Relocation Discussion Set For Tonight
- In The Ringing Rebuild, Whither Pius?
- Ringing Rocks Relocation Plan: Modulars At MS
- Ringing Rocks Construction Cost Hearing Tonight
- Planners OK Ringing Rocks Land Sketch
- District Sets Dec. 3 Hearing On Rocks Budget
- Pottsgrove Asks State Help To Pay For Ringing Re-Build
- As School Opens, Progress On Ringing Rocks’ Project
- Surprise Enrollment Spurs Demographic Interest
- District Assembles Ringing Rocks Planning Team
- District OKs Architect Negotiations
- Consensus On Ringing Renovations: $16M
- Ringing Rocks Proposals Aired Tuesday
- Ringing Rocks Re-Examined April 14
- Pottsgrove To Trust-But-Verify On Ringing Plans
- Ringing Rocks Plans Take Another Step
- No Shortage Of Ideas At Pottsgrove Meeting
- Weigh In On Pottsgrove Renovations
- Framing The Rocks Discussion
- Response Mixed To Pottsgrove Improvements
- District Invites Public For Study Results
- A Different Rocks, But Only As A Concept
Related (to the Pottsgrove Board of School Directors’ March 23 meeting):
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$2.5 million dollars for HVAC??? What would it cost for conventional HVAC? What is the annual savings with Geothermal? How long before we break even? How can this board lock its citizens into a project where answers to such fundamental questions are unanswered, or at least were unanswered before the costs were locked in? Essentially, they are saying that even though no one did this essential homework, it’s too late to do anything about it. This is absurd. What other costs could be cut out of a project that has escaped scrutiny from a Board that is supposed to be looking out for the interests of the taxpayers of this township, as well as the students. Delay the project till next year. Better yet, scrap it for the more moderate project promulgated by Robert Lindgren.