New walkways are being built around the public library. (Photo by Lisa Aciukewicz)
Each year, the first day of school represents a fresh start. Students traditionally agonize over what to wear for that new beginning. (Teachers do, too.) And, over the summer, the maintenance staff paints, plasters, repairs, and cleans so that the building itself is ready to welcome its occupants back for another year of learning, teaching, and growing.
Painting, patching,
plumbing, and parking
When school opens next week, Bromfield students will find a gleaming gym floor that was sanded down to bare wood and refinished over the summer. The exposed steel on the building exterior has been sanded and freshly painted. Across the street, an upgraded path makes for easier walking between the elementary school and the administration offices in Bromfield House.
School Facilities Manager Mark Force reports that other, less visible changes include “a lot of patching and painting,” numerous plumbing repairs, and safety inspections for all school buildings. Room-darkening window shades will keep classrooms on the sunny side of the high school from becoming afternoon ovens. Hildreth Elementary School also has new shades to replace the many broken, crooked venetian blinds that were installed about 25 years ago.
Some of these projects originally appeared as warrant articles at the 2014 Annual Town Meeting, asking for funding from the Capital Stabilization and Investment Fund. However, the School Committee withdrew the articles and paid for the projects with money remaining in its budget.
Of course, the largest and most visible change is the newly repaved Bromfield parking lot off Pond Road. Gone are the cavernous potholes and the gigantic frost heaves, so impressive that many residents mistook them for intentional speed bumps. The new lot offers more spaces than the old one, along with a raised pedestrian crossing that creates a continuous sidewalk from Pond Road to the Bromfield School walkway. DPW Director Rich Nota, who managed the project, said there were “no surprises” in the construction and that the project came in “on time and within budget.”
Items remain on the to-do list
Not all the school projects on the to-do list have been completed, Force said. The parts are on order to repair heat recovery units and bathroom exhaust systems on the Bromfield School roof, which all failed at once. That work will be done before the heating season begins, he said.
One project that ran into an unexpected snag was replacing the spalling concrete in front of the Bromfield School. Force explained that the project was put out to bid last spring but received only two bids. When the contractor who won the job began work, he found that the concrete pad was 8 inches deep, not 4 inches as expected. The contractor’s revised estimate was “astronomical,” Force said.
With the School Committee’s approval, Superintendent Linda Dwight and Force decided to put the project on hold and seek new bids next winter, when they expect more contractors to compete for the job. The new concrete, Force said, will be a much stronger mix than the old. In addition, he plans to make sealing the area part of routine yearly maintenance. Meanwhile, Force has filled and smoothed the places where the concrete had deteriorated so that the walkways are safer.
Plans for other projects are moving ahead. The architectural firm Blackstone and Block has been hired to assess the condition of the kindergarten wing at Hildreth Elementary School. During the fall and winter this year, school administrators and the School Committee will continue working on plans for a new parking lot plan at HES. The main goal, Force said, is to get parking away from Mass. Ave. and to make room for a sidewalk.
Further into the future is paving for the upper parking lot at Bromfield, next to the center cemetery. Force noted that a new “night-sky” light had been installed in that unpaved lot to improve safety while keeping the amount of ambient light low.
Landscaping at the library
The Harvard Public Library has also undertaken an outdoor construction project, near the schools but unrelated to their summer work. The project is being funded by the Harvard Public Library Trust, which is supported by donations, explained Library Trustee Gail Coolidge. New landscaping at the library will include improved walkways around the building, a stone-paved terrace off the children’s room, and stone steps on the hillside path from the high school, as well as hardy plantings.
