Austintown officials, pupils break ground for buildings

By Elise Franco | May 25, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

Austintown

A ceremonial groundbreaking Tuesday at Frank Ohl Intermediate School kicked off a $50 million, two-year-long construction project that will result in two new elementary buildings on the Fitch High School campus.

Superintendent Vince Colaluca said though actual construction of the new kindergarten through second-grade and third-through fifth-grade buildings won’t begin until June 10, it was important to have an event to recognize those who have made the project possible.

“We really wanted to thank the Austintown community for passing the bond issue,” he said. “We never would have been able to pull this off without the parents, grandparents and neighbors who voted.”

The Ohio School Facilities Commission is paying for $27 million of the $50 million project, and money already has been earmarked for demolition of Watson, Lloyd, Woodside, Davis and Lynn Kirk elementary schools and Frank Ohl Intermediate. The district passed the 2.9-mill bond issue in May 2010 to raise the remaining $23 million.

Kathy Mock, school board president, said the groundbreaking is a new beginning for Austintown schools.

“It’s a historic event for the district and the community because it’s not something just one or two people did. It was a collaborative effort,” she said. “This symbolic event signifies the beginning of a new era.”

Colaluca said once the asbestos-abatement process for Watson and Frank Ohl are under way in June, bids will go out for the excavation of the land around the buildings.

“We should be moving dirt by August,” he said.

The new buildings will be built on empty land behind those current schools, which will be demolished as one of the last steps in the project set for completion in September 2013, he said.

Dennis Rice, Frank Ohl principal, said he drove back to Austintown from Camp Fitch just for Tuesday’s event. Rice said though the new buildings will better students’ education, he will miss the old.

“There’s a lot of history in this building, a lot of memories,” he said.