SWAMPSCOTT — The new elementary school being constructed at 10 Whitman Road broke ground on Dec. 13. Since then, the project has been on pace to open in the fall of 2024.
“They’ve cleared all the debris off the site and now they’re just systematically going around the site and taking care of the ledge,” Suzanne Wright, the School Building Committee chair, said. “They’ve removed a lot of soil, and they’ll continue to remove rocks and soil around the property to level everything. So that’s where they’re at now, it’ll be a couple months of doing this.”
Demolition of the old building and the beginning of site construction has all “begun without any sort of hiccups and it’s kind of been like holding our breath but so far, so good,” she said.
The construction company working on the project is CTA Construction. So far, Wright said she has been really “impressed” with them.
“It’s a tight site, and it’s a tough project and they’re all really coordinating their services and working together unbelievably well. It’s been really impressive to be at their contractor meetings,” Wright said. “They’ve been really respectful of the neighbors.”
The blasting of the site has also begun, according to a January project update from the committee. Blasting info, permits and a blasting radius map can be found on the project’s website.
“I think there’s been three days of them since they started beginning of last week. So they could be on consecutive days but they don’t necessarily have to be on consecutive days, it sort of just depends on the area and how large the blast was and how much they need to clear after it’s happened,” Wright said.
According to the project timeline, in February “trenching for underground utilities, concrete footing and foundations and drilling for geothermal wells” will begin. In the spring geothermal horizontal pipes run, structural steel framing, exterior wall system installation and interior construction is all set to begin.
By the summer, the roof installation and “light grade metal framing installation” are set to begin.
For the committee, most of their meetings and updates now have to do with procedural items and “checking boxes and crossing T’s and dotting eyes,” Wright said.
“The school building committee just approves the invoices that come in, especially if something is larger than $100,000 or something that’s not in line with the original budget which we really haven’t had,” she said.
Wright said she is most looking forward to “the stuff you don’t see” in the new building.
“I’m most excited to see an electric building and the geothermal heating and cooling,” she said. “I’m really excited that our kids are finally going to get the building they deserve. The teachers and the students are going to get a 21st century building finally.”
