PEABODY — The Tanners basketball teams will take to the parquet floor this year.
They won’t be joining Kyrie Irving and the other new Celtics at the Garden, but playing on a new “Boston parquet” floor of their own at the high school’s field house. In addition to the field house floor, new seating and flooring for the auditorium and a new roof on about half the school are among the major renovations wrapping up at the school this summer.
“We expect that these projects will be done either before school begins or during the first week of school,” said Mayor Edward A. Bettencourt Jr. “Everything is moving full speed ahead.”
During a tour of the high school Wednesday with city facilities manager Timothy Healy, work was indeed winding down on those projects.
“All the work is going well,” said Healy. “Today, they are going to put the first coat of sealer on the floor,” said Healy.
The sealing follows a meticulous sanding process on the maple floor. After the sanding and sealing are done, Healy said the lines and graphics will be put on the hoops floor, followed by multiple coats of polyurethane.
“The flooring is called Boston parquet, so it actually looks like the floor at the Boston Garden,” said Healy.
The new floor replaces a rubberized multi-surface covering that has worn down and been a cause of slipping and safety concerns over the years, according to the facilities manager. Players and fans should also be able to see the action a little clearer this year, thanks to new LED lighting in the field house.
Moving onto the auditorium, new seats and flooring are the first major upgrade in the space since the school opened in the 1970s.
“The flooring is so much easier to maintain, it’s the type of material used in high-end garages,” said Healy. “It’s easy to clean and safer from slipping. There are also some upgrades to the ceiling and the lighting.”
The biggest, and most comfortable, addition to the auditorium is the theater style seating. The cushioned seats are wider than those that have been used by students for more than four decades.
Putting in the seats was a little more involved than lining up a bunch of folding chairs, Healy said.
“The guys who installed them are from Maryland,” said Healy. “They do auditorium and stadium seating all across the country. “There’s a little more to it than people think. If you look at the rows, they curve a little bit, and you need to get the seats into that curve.”
Heading up to the top of the high school, work is almost done on a new rubberized membrane roof covering about 70,000 square feet, or 60 percent of the school.
“There should be energy savings from heating and cooling consumption,” said Healy. “The new roof should be good for about 25 years.”
The tar and gravel roofing that wasn’t replaced this year should still be good for another five or six years before the city needs to take on that project, he said.
The new roof costs $1.8 million, with the Massachusetts School Building Authority covering 56 percent of the funding. The city is picking up the tab for the $450,000 auditorium and field house projects through its capital budget.
Even before the final touches are put on the roof and the polyurethane dries on the field house floor, Bettencourt said he’s looking ahead to more projects at the high school in the next year or two. Chief among them is a new softball field on the school’s upper field area. The high school softball team currently plays its home games at the Kiley Elementary School.
The mayor said he would like to see the team play at the high school.
