Electrical issues delay MTHS plans

Clearance of Thompson Park land in process, despite set-back

By: Bill Greenwood
   MONROE — The Board of Education has taken two steps forward and one step back in the construction of a new high school and elementary school.
   The board said at a meeting Wednesday that it submitted documents — including title reports, surveys and an environmental impact statement — to the state Department of Environmental Protection. The DEP should have received the documents Monday, according to school board attorney Bertram Busch, and the organization will have 20 days to determine whether the application is complete. Once that decision is made, he said, the DEP will have an additional 30 days to make comments and recommendations.
   Should the application be approved, the DEP will free the 35-acre parcel of land in Thompson Park on Schoolhouse Road designated for the construction of the new high school from the requirements imposed by the Green Acres program, Mr. Busch said.
   The county would then transfer the land to the township, which would turn it over to the school board.
   The board also said it has received word that the Prisco Group, which submitted architectural drawings and schematics for the new elementary school to the state Department of Community Affairs in September, should receive its first review comments from the DCA sometime next week. The project design team will evaluate these comments and submit a revised application to the DCA, board member Joseph Homoki said Wednesday. Once the revised application is approved, the project may be advertised for bid.
   However, the board took a step back because MRM Architecture has yet to submit the same documents for the high school to the DCA, something the board said had already been done at its previous meeting on Sept. 28. Mr. Homoki said the group now expects to send the drawings and schematics during the first week of November. The approval process will take about two to four months after which the project can be advertised for bid, board President Kathy Kolupanowich said at the meeting.
   Superintendent Ralph Ferrie said that the delay is because of electrical issues that held up the completion of the final drawings. He said Jim Morton, of MRM, told him the group should be finished within the next week and a half, at which point a submission will be made.
   "We are on top of this with Mr. Morton, and we have had conversation about this, and we’re going to follow through with it," Dr. Ferrie said at the meeting.
   Township voters approved an $82.9 million referendum for the high school in December 2003. It will be 365,000 square feet and accommodate 1,800 students upon completion in the fall of 2011.
   A $26.8 million plan for the elementary school was approved by voters in January. The building will be 80,275 square feet and will be built on Applegarth Road, across from Applegarth Middle School. It is expected to open in September 2008 as a kindergarten-through-sixth-grade building but will become a kindergarten-through-second-grade school once the new high school is completed. At that point, the existing high school will become a middle school.