Sunday, November 25, 2007
The state is picking up 80 percent of Youngstown’s rebuilding program.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR EDUCATION WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN — It will cost about $1.5 million to tear down Wilson High School, and razing The Rayen School could be even more expensive.
Both high schools, Wilson built on Gibson Street in 1928 and Rayen built on Benita Avenue in 1922, closed last spring and are destined for the wrecking ball. New middle schools will be built on their sites.
It’s all part of an approximate $180 million rebuilding program involving 14 city schools.
Nearly all of the former Rayen students now attend the new East High School, as does about half of the former Wilson students. The other half from Wilson attends the remodeled and expanded Chaney High School.
The city school board put the Wilson demolition project out for bid last week after hearing an estimate from its construction project manager, Heery International Inc., that the cost of tearing it down will be just under $1.5 million.
The Rayen demolition specifications are being prepared, and Heery said that project will likely cost more, pointing out that some of the interior hallway walls in that building are 20 inches thick.
The Ohio School Facilities Commission is picking up 80 percent of the rebuilding program cost and that includes the building demolitions.
The school board approved several other resolutions related to the rebuilding project.
The board agreed to seek bids for asbestos removal and site security fencing for the vacant Cleveland and Bennett elementary schools, which are to be razed. Combined, those contracts could cost a little more than $100,000.
Children who attended Cleveland are enrolled at Kirkmere Elementary and pupils who last attended Bennett are at Williamson Elementary.
The board awarded an asbestos removal contract for the closed Martin Luther King Elementary, also slated to be razed. Environmental Protection Systems of Girard got that job at $74,163.
The board also approved the seeking of bids for data cabling for the new Wilson and Volney Rogers middle schools. The district must apply for an E-Rate reimbursement for that work, even though the new Volney building isn’t complete and Wilson has yet to begin.
E-Rate is the Federal Communications Commission’s Schools and Libraries Program that provides discounts to help schools get telecommunications systems. It’s funded by a fee charged to companies that provide interstate and international communications services.
Youngstown has been eligible for reimbursement of 90 percent of the cabling cost on some of its other new buildings, according to Heery International. The estimated cost for Wilson is $140,000 while the cost at Volney is expected to be about $132,000.
Finally, the board authorized the seeking of bids on furniture and equipment for the new North and Paul C. Bunn elementaries now under construction.
Bidding them jointly as a large package could provide a better price, according to Heery. The combined cost is estimated at just under $500,000.
gwin@vindy.com