Jewett City, CT – FIP Construction, Inc., Kaestle Boos, and BVH Integrated Services, Inc. have been working on the campus of both the Griswold Elementary and Middle Schools in Jewett City over the past three years. The phased construction required keeping two active occupied schools in operation during the $60 million plus improvements.
The project is about three to four weeks ahead of schedule due to FIP’s ability to find efficiencies in the schedule, according to school building committee chairman Frank Everett.
He said the Griswold Middle School renovations, completed in 2010, came in $1.8 million under budget.
The $35 million Elementary School was multi-phase, multi-expansion project with nearly 130,000sf of new space basically created a new state of the art school on the site of the existing school. The project consisted of new classrooms, media center, science labs, media library, cafeteria and gymnasium. There were also significant site improvements at the athletic fields and hardscape. The project included a geothermal heating and cooling design integrated into the project with bore field in the athletic fields.
The $28 million Middle School was the initial project of two adjacent schools to be expanded and renovated. Careful extraction of hazardous materials at the inception of the project was required from this turn of the century building.
The project consisted of adding nearly 75,000sf and renovating over 40,000sf in phases. All of the newly added and renovated classrooms were made state of the art.
The project also contained a new media center, auditorium, science labs, cafeteria, and gymnasium. The project required replacement all new MEP systems. The building envelope was improved to better thermal values and energy efficiency.
Words From the Architect:
Griswold Middle School: Combining the Old with the New
The original Griswold Middle School was constructed in the 1930s as a high school facility. Since then, it served as an intermediate school, and finally, the middle school.
While the renovation project at Griswold Middle School doubled the facility’s size and encompassed many new, energy-efficient technologies, a great deal of effort was made by Kaestle Boos Associates, BVH Integrated Services, and FIP Construction to preserve many of the historic characteristics of the original facility.
Photovoltaic solar panels were installed on the white membrane roof to help generate electricity to power the energy-efficient lighting in the restored auditorium with wood beams running across the ceiling and a code compliant balcony area. Through the numerous efficiency updates including heat recovery units, high-efficiency lighting units, and water conservation fixtures, the existing boiler plant is supporting the entire building, both new and existing, without adding to or replacing the existing boilers.
And outside, drought resistant landscaping was incorporated into the site, while brick and masonry were selected to match the existing building envelope to provide a seamless integration of past and present architecture.