New Cleveland gym is taking shape
Published Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Photo by Zak Holtan
Masonry is the focus at the new Cleveland Elementary gymnasium this week.
Walls are up at the Cleveland Elementary construction site, where masonry work continues and well-drilling has been put on-hold.
Masonry on the school’s new gymnasium is the focus this week, said R.A. Morton Construction Manager Michael Beach. Steel is supposed to arrive as early as this week but will not be set until next week.
Chilly temperatures have halted work on the Cleveland hill, where workers have been drilling wells for the property’s new geothermal heating system.
“What you have to realize is when you’re working with a water-based product and it’s 20-below, it’s kind of hard to unfreeze,” Beach said.
With warmer temperatures in the forecast this week, Beach said he hopes work on the wells will resume in the near future. When the project is finished, the hill will be home to 80 180-foot underground wells.
As for the Fergus Falls Middle School project, architects from ATS&R are continuing to finalize the design for the site of the future secondary school. Fergus Falls Business Manager Mark Masten said architects have moved past the point of, say, picking out colors. The task at hand is to get the design formatted to submit to the school district.
“It’s just working out the pages and pages of documents that will be used to build this project,” Masten said, likening the documents to a blueprint.
Architects must have 80 percent of those construction documents to district administrators for review by March 31. R.A. Morton will provide another cost estimate based on the documents April 14.
Relatively little work will be needed at Eisenhower School, where sixth graders will be housed next year when construction begins at the middle school. Minor changes may include wiring for technology and moving food service equipment from one building to another, Masten said.
The transition to Eisenhower falls near the end of the district’s domino-effect building moves, which begin when school finishes May 23. Fourth grade staff must first move from McKinley Elementary to Cleveland, making room for the early childhood and pre-kindergarten staff moving from Eisenhower to McKinley. Then sixth-grade staff will move to Eisenhower as seventh- and eighth-grade staff prepare to spend the 2008-2009 school year in the high school’s “C” wing.
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