East Windsor School District to embark on most expensive renovation project at Melvin H. Kreps Middle School.
By: David Pescatore
HIGHTSTOWN The East Windsor Regional School District expects to send its most expensive renovation project out to bid next week.
Estimated at $18.6 million, the Melvin H. Kreps Middle School is slated to receive a two-story, 15-classroom addition attached to the left wing of the symmetrically designed building.
The addition is scheduled to be started next month and completed in September 2004, along with a 7,700-square-foot gymnasium complete with locker and weight rooms.
"This is the biggest project on the table," said the project manager, Joe Vasta of The Prisco Group.
Also starting in September will be the construction of a 650-seat auditorium and attached music room, which will connect to the addition.
With a dedicated auditorium, Kreps’ multipurpose room can be renovated into a full-time cafeteria during the next phase, scheduled for next summer.
"The cafeteria was difficult," Mr. Vasta said, "because there are no external walls to allow natural light to come in."
Having natural sunlight reaching every student-used room is one of the district’s goals throughout its six renovation projects.
To meet this goal, Mr. Vasta said that the school’s exterior walls alongside the cafeteria would be made entirely of glass. The walls of the cafeteria, across a hallway, would also be made of glass, allowing sunlight to penetrate.
The Kreps cafeteria will engulf two nearby classrooms and free two distant auxiliary cafeterias. Those areas, 1,500 square feet each, will be reconfigured into an art room and a vocal-music room beginning in September 2004 and are expected to be ready for use in January 2005.
During that same time period, Kreps’ eight "train classrooms" will be renovated into four science labs.
They are called "train classrooms," Mr. Vasta explained, because students need to pass through one classroom to enter another, like travelers moving among train cars.
Mr. Vasta said that a major benefit to the renovation would be the elimination of "jogs," or areas in the hallways where students are forced to make several turns to navigate through the school.
"The lines of sight are poor. That causes congestion. Student traffic backs up. It also requires a teacher to stand at each corner to monitor the halls," he said.
So how does one straighten a crooked hallway?
"With a big sledgehammer," according to Mr. Vasta.
He said that while renovations are under way, classrooms would be moved to leave behind straight hallways that can be monitored by two teachers instead of the eight teachers currently required.
As with the other school construction plans, a new bus loop will be created around the school to improve bus traffic flow and any open-space classrooms will be enclosed.
Repairs will be made to the floors in the classrooms in the right wing throughout the project and the three hexagon-shaped classrooms will be enclosed, creating an additional small-group-instruction area in the process.
The Kreps renovations are part of a $64.4 million referendum approved by voters Sept. 24, 2002. The plan includes renovations to all six district schools, with $43.8 million to be raised through bonding.