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Gym renovations nearly done
Photo
STAYING IN THE LINES: Marv Hermes, of Williams Hardwood Flooring in Akron, carefully maneuvers his paint roller along the taped lines on the new floor of Canfield High School’s gymnasium. The crew was painting the lines on the new floor Friday.
The renovation projects should be completed in two weeks.
By Jon Moffett
CANFIELD — Many students are enjoying the last few weeks of summer as frantically as possible. But Canfield school administrators are taking the time to watch paint dry.
The school district is undergoing a $378,354 renovation project to replace the bleachers and gymnasium floor at the high school. A crew from Williams Hardwood Flooring in Akron was busy painting lines on the new court Friday. Bleachers will be installed within two weeks, and the project should be completed before school starts Sept. 8.
Superintendent Dante Zambrini said the project has been planned for a few years and has finally come to fruition. The school will open its 2009 academic year with brand-new flooring for the 12,114-square-foot surface.
“We knew we had to replace the gym floor, so we saved the money for five to six years, about $50,000 each year, as part of our permanent improvement,” he said. “We believed it would come in at $300,000, and we’re very close.”
Zambrini said the floor became a safety issue. Some panels were slightly warped and caused an uneven playing surface. The floor is used for much more than athletics, he said, and years of wear and tear caused it to take a beating. The old floor had been in use for about 30 years, he said.
“We were having some major issues with the floor,” said Rich Archer, business manager of the schools. “There was just no way we could’ve lasted another three or four years with it.”
The school battled rot issues for the past two years, Archer said. He added that there would be areas of rot the size of a quarter at the beginning of the year. The spots were about the size of small plates by the end of the year.
Zambrini said he has a theory on why the floor was so water-damaged.
“Most recently, in 1999-2000, we were doing construction,” he said. “A terrible storm came, and the parking lot was not yet finished, and there was a slope inward, so the water ran in here.”
Marv Hermes, a worker for Williams Hardwood, said the school district contacted the company three years ago. When plans for the project were finalized, a crew began to remove the old floor and found it to be “saturated” underneath.
“After we got the old floor torn out, you could visibly see areas that still contained moisture,” he said.
The gymnasium now resembles a construction site more than a basketball court. Plastic construction sheets hang over entrances, and a thin layer of dust is visible on most surfaces.
Two bare walls will soon have bleachers attached, which will seat about 1,350 people.
Underneath the bleachers — and the floor — will be a ventilation system to ensure the same problem won’t happen twice. Williams will install a system where four fans will blow air underneath the floorboards to remove moisture.
“The system has a sensor, and if it detects any moisture, it sends a relay to the fans, and they kick on,” Hermes said.
Zambrini and the board wrestled with the idea of selling pieces of the old floor as mementos, but the condition of the wood may have foiled that idea. Another plan is to take the boards that made up center court of the old floor and display them in the gym’s lobby area.
Whichever plan is chosen, school officials think the new floor will be one of the school’s showpieces.
Greg Cooper, athletic director at the high school, said, “When people come in and see that beautiful floor, there will be a real ‘wow’ factor.”
Renovation project | Canfield High School gym
The renovation project began a few weeks ago and should be completed in two weeks. The gym floor and bleachers have been removed and replaced.
Demolition: $15,000
New floor: $106,754
New bleachers: $146,600
New carpet mats: $10,000
Total: $278,354
Source: Canfeld school board