Last Tuesday, members of the Mt. Greylock School Building Committee, members of the Transition Committee, and members of the Turner Construction Company all met in the Mt. Greylock library to discuss the prospect of demolition for the new school. There has been much debate about whether or not to delay the demolition of the school, in the off chance that the new building would not be completed by the upcoming school year. This topic was explored in an earlier Echo article.

A decision seems to have been reached, although no official vote has taken place. Instead, the building committee, guided by the district’s construction manager, reviewed the timeline and estimation of completion for the building. In the previous meeting, a schedule was put in place but has since been revised. As opposed to the foregoing dates of July 6, August 2, and July 26 for the classroom wing, central core, and cafeteria completion, those dates have now been changed to July 3, July 17, and July 24, respectively. These optimistic deadlines are sure to give the building committee a vote of confidence concerning the demolition decision, and their conclusion to refrain from voting held true to that.

In an email exchange previous to the recent meeting, head of the building committee Mark Schiek commented on the upcoming resolution, stating that “One might think that the easiest solution would be to delay the demolition, but that would increase potential costs and delay finishing of the total project”. It seems that those worries can be put to rest, despite an ultimate vote not being made.

That being said, worries may still arise, as common in large building projects. Project manager Mike Giso did call to light some concerns, as requested by the committee at the last meeting. Those included the testing of sprinklers and fire alarms, and Giso was quoted in iberkshires saying, “did we see anything that is going to come back and bite us? Not that we can anticipate.” This gray area will hopefully be negligible going into the new school year, but it goes to show the risky factors that play a role in the decision making. Schiek agrees, saying that “there is always some uncertainty in large projects, and so the SBC will need to have a level of comfort with continuing along the set project schedule.”  Other concerns from Giso included inspections from health inspectors and meeting standards of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

While these concerns are significant, all signs point to the demolition taking place at the beginning of the summer. More information will be sure to arise as more meetings take place, the next occurring on July 12 in the WES cafeteria.