The passage of the 2022 bond referendum in Cherry Hill allowed for a number of improvements to be made at all buildings throughout the district.
At the Business and Facilities meeting, Bob Garrison Jr. from Garrison Architects, Scott Writz from New Road Construction Management, Neil Werket from Environmental Resolutions Inc., Rob Notely from New Road Construction Management and Steve Nicolella, director of facilities at Cherry Hill gave updates on the projects worked on throughout the summer at the Sept. 6 Committee meeting.
The biggest project was the roof replacements at 10 buildings, which totaled around 500,000 square feet of roof area.
According to Garrison, over the course of the summer, the district was able to successfully tear or coat 10 roof buildings and 500,000 square feet of roof area. The schools under one contract were East High School, Cooper, Knight, and Sharp elementary schools, another contract, West High School, Harte, Kilmer, and Kingston elementary schools and then remainer at Beck Middle School and at Woodcrest Elementary School.
Garrison thanked the contractors, organized labor and Local 30, a roofing unit who provided them the necessary manpower to take on the task.
“They were on roofs at many times at 5:30 in the morning, which is what they needed to beat the heat, this went on Saturday, Sundays, weekends– this was the only way to accomplish this work,” said Garrison. “Yes there is still work to be done but the amount of work done was historic, it worked beautifully with three different contractors, … and they all worked together.”
Regarding the stadium bleachers and lights at Cherry Hill High School East, Garrison noted that they are ordering materials now but rather than trying to complete it before the football games this year, they are aiming to start after the season around October.
At Rosa Middle School, the first and second floors have been abated of Asbestos, new lockers and new floor tiles have been added in the hallways, refreshing the area from the old carpets.
Board member Adam Greenbaum reported there being a lot of positive feedback from the staff.
At Paine and Harte, they replaced the playground equipment and did some site improvements at Paine for site accessibility. The ramps and steps are installed with temporary handrails which are estimated to be fully finished in around a month.
“When the site improvements go in, the contractor has to come and field measure exactly how the handrail (fits)– the length, the rise, the fall,” Garrison explained. “We don’t want to prefab something and then have to weld it in the field or cut it or something. That’s why you see the handrails that you see here, because that’s the last piece of the puzzle that gets measured.”
Werket noted that the steps and ramps at all sites were extensive.
“They’re built in the same way that you would build a building,” Werket added. “There’s construction of those, a lot of concrete in those and if anything’s off then the whole entire thing is off and you have to redo it. We try to avoid that at all costs.”
The professionals also touched on the need for temporary classrooms at Carusi Middle School in the upcoming school year, the possibility of adding a fence at schools.
The next board of education meeting will be on Tuesday, Sept. 26 at 6:30 p.m.
