Austintown school project ready to go out for bids

An architect estimates the building will take up to 20 months to complete.
By DENISE DICK
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
AUSTINTOWN -- The new middle school building is ready for bids.
School board members approved drawings this week for the new $26 million, three-floor building on South Raccoon Road.
The 174,668-square-foot building will house pupils in grades sixth through eighth.
Ray Jaminet of Olsavsky-Jaminet of Youngstown, the project's architect, said the project is ready to be advertised for bids and estimated that it would take between 16 months and 20 months to complete the school building.
Relocating
The new school means some shuffling of pupils. Fourth- and fifth-graders will attend Frank Ohl Middle School. That school, along with Austintown Middle School, now houses fifth through eighth graders.
Kindergarten through third-graders will attend one of the district's five elementary schools.
Austintown Middle School, Mahoning Avenue, will close when the new school opens. The property will likely be sold. Whether the building is demolished by the school district before the sale or afterward by the buyer hasn't been determined.
The township recently approved the rezoning of the property to commercial at the school board's request.
The school board borrowed the money to build the school through 2.9-mill bond issue voters approved in November 2003.
Plans show eighth-grade classrooms, offices, special education classrooms, a cafetorium, gymnasium and vocal and instrumental music rooms on the first floor.
Seventh-grade classrooms and a media center will be on the second floor, with sixth-graders on the third floor.
The building will have 44 classrooms, about 900 square feet each; eight special education classrooms; seven 1,179-square-foot science labs; and two computer labs that will cover about 900 square feet each.
Part of the school building project involves creating a new wetlands to replace what's being built upon. The new wetlands will be on Falcon Drive near the Fitch High School tennis courts.
Superintendent Stan Watson said a tour of the new wetlands, directed by Dr. Michael Crowe, from the New Springfield environmental company that's designing them, will begin at 5:15 p.m. Monday at the tennis courts.