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Education Transformation
Many Moving Pieces to Build New Connecticut School
by Katherine S. Robertson
A few years ago, a high school project in Middletown, Conn., had the makings of a disaster. Ambitious programming, site challenges, and various modifications – along with a change in municipal leadership and ousting of the original construction manager – all signaled trouble.
 Instead, construction of the new, $107 million Middletown High School and Vocational-Agricultural Center is firmly on track to welcome students in fall 2008.
A big part of the turn in fortune is a concerted effort by the project team to work collaboratively in the wake of the challenges, says Denis Rioux, project architect with DeCarlo & Doll of Hampden, Conn.
“On this project, there’s a definite sense of teaming between the CM, the owner, and the architect,” he adds. “There was a healthy attitude of ‘let’s make this work rather than banging heads.’”
Civic leaders in Middletown, a town 17 mi. south of Hartford, opted to build a new school because there are 1,400 students in an existing high school facility that was designed for 800. After several starts and stops, the town settled on a plan to construct the new school on the 120-acre campus of an existing junior high school. Once the new high school opens, the town will transfer the junior high students to the old high school facility and tear down the junior high structure.
The intricate plan got off to a rough start. Shortly after the election in 2005 of a new mayor and appointment of a new town building committee overseeing the project, problems with the construction manager, Tomasso Brothers of New Britain, Conn., boiled over, says W. Lee Osborne, who chairs the committee and is an architect with Smith Osborne Architects of Middletown. The disputes involved the town’s concerns that it could not obtain a reliable guaranteed maximum price and adequate progress reports, as well as cost overruns. Tomasso did not return a call requesting comment.
Though work had begun on the foundation and early steel erection, the town ousted Tomasso and took over all contracts. By the time the town hired Gilbane Building of Providence as the new construction manager, four large contracts for excavation, steel, concrete, and elevators – totaling about 25% of the construction budget – already had been let. Gilbane hit the ground running, says Rob Van Akin, the firm’s project executive.
“On Friday, May 5, [2006], we were told we had the contract,” he adds. “On the following Monday, we had six people on the job.”
A critical early decision was keeping most of the original building plan intact, says DeCarlo’s Rioux.
“[Gilbane’s] approach was very healthy in the sense that they realized they were dealing with something that was already cast,” he adds. “They accepted the fact they had to deal with decisions that were already made. They were never at odds over any elements of the building.”
Such harmony was a boost to a project with an extensive scope – the 252,000 sq ft main school designed by DeCarlo and a 26,000-sq-ft vocational-agricultural component designed by Middletown-based AM Design, a subconsultant. The project also is on a difficult site rife with wetlands, leaving just about 50 buildable acres.
“The predominant design constraint was the nature of the wetlands,” Rioux says. “We were very limited to the actual footprint and location of the pad.”
From above, the building envelope resembles a “figure 8” hugged at the center by two courtyards, which add space and light to the tight site. To compensate for the site constraints, the design adds height, resulting in a three-story structure that fronts the main access road and then spreads back through two academic wings holding about 95 classrooms.
The town had to regroup last year, seeking $27 million in additional funds to complete the project through a voter referendum that passed in the spring. But weeks later, the state legislature authorized funding that will cover most of the project’s cost, according to the office of State Sen. Thomas Gaffey, who chairs the legislature’s Education Committee.
The project faced another twist with a decision by the town to add sustainable design elements and pursue Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification. Among the features will be new fuel cells manufactured by UTC of South Windsor, Conn., to boost the conventional fossil fuel-powered physical plant, an effort that required the project team to dig up completed foundation work in order to lay new conduit, Rioux says.
In addition, the electrical systems, designed by New York’s STV Inc., have conservation features, such as room-occupancy sensors and programmable lighting controls. It also has a steel roof with a white, heat-deflecting PVC membrane.
The town also modified plans to allow the building to serve as an emergency operations center, which required adding an 8,000-gallon fuel tank and generator.
The building has a structural steel frame with concrete on metal deck floors. It is built slab on grade with spread footings in the middle and continuous wall footings on the perimeter, Van Akin says.
The skin is brick on the front elevation with red split-faced masonry on other exterior walls. Parapets provide architectural flair to the façade, which is “very rusticated,” Rioux says. The look responds to the town’s desire to have a traditional flavor that fits into the area’s rural context.
Once the new school is open, the town will complete a minor rehabilitation of the old high school and relocate Middletown’s junior high students to that facility, which Osborne says will be an upgrade for them. The existing junior high building had been built “cheap and dirty” 35 years ago, and was in bad shape, he says.
Work on the old high school is separate, but demolition of the junior high next year is part of the new project scope. In its place, the team will build 12 acres of recreational space, including a track with a layered synthetic surface and a football field with turf made of polyethylene fibers and granulated rubber infill particles.
The new school’s classrooms will have interactive “whiteboards,” which allow teachers to connect a computer to an overhead projector screen. The vocational-agricultural center will feature a greenhouse and farm animal pens. The school also will have a community health center; food court-style cafeteria; 700-seat theatre with a 95-ft wide stage and orchestra pit; a gym seating 1,400 spectators; and a six-lane pool heated through recycled air.
“It’s one building, different areas, all connected,” Van Akin says. “Every component has a different structure and feel.”
Key Players
Owner: Middletown School District
Architect: DeCarlo & Doll, Hampden, Conn.
Vocational School Architect: AM Design, Middletown, Conn.
Construction Manager: Gilbane Building, Providence
M-E-P Engineer: STV Inc., New York
Civil Engineer: A-N Consulting Engineers, Berlin, Conn.
Landscape Architect: C R 3, Simsbury, Conn.
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