SYRACUSE N.Y. (NCC News) – Construction at Henninger High School could now go into the school year due to construction delays.
On Thursday morning, the Syracuse Joint Schools Construction Board met for their monthly meeting at City Hall. Joint School Construction Boards (JSCBs) are not unique to Syracuse. JSCBs are able to be made in New York States cities and are governed by a combination of government and school officials. The first JSCB was created in Buffalo in 2000 and the Syracuse JSCB was created in 2006.
The Syracuse JSCB completes school construction in phases. They are currently in Phase II which is set to be completed before the end of 2022. Phase II was amended to JSCB legislation in 2013 and allowed up to 300-million dollars more of construction.
Part of the Phase II construction involves renovations at Henninger High School. Even though the building is rated “satisfactory,” there are still repairs needed to update health and safety systems as well as space expansion renovations.
JSCB Phase II Program Manager, Chris Gray, oversees the Phase II projects and gives a monthly report to the board. This month, Gray noted that some of the projects at Henninger High School were falling behind. The bulk of construction that still needs to be completed is on the upper level kitchen and cafeteria. There is also construction happening in classrooms to replace doors and windows.
“I’ve noted here in this report… that based on the schedule that we have and the projections that the schedule is giving us that we’re about a month behind on that in terms of the work that’s over there,” said Gray during Thursday’s meeting.
It was expected as a part of the original schedule that the renovations would be completed by the start of the school year.
The main reason that construction is behind schedule is due to labor shortages with the contractor. Concerns were raised by many of the board members. Citizen Representative, Patricia Body, voiced her concerns about incomplete renovations affecting students and teachers.
“This has been going on for three months or longer that we’ve been aware that we’ve been behind and… we’ve been told that there’s plans for it to catch up… So why would we just be putting in a plan this week?” said Body in regards to Gray saying a plan needs to be put in place to catch up with or adapt to the ongoing renovations.
According to Director of Facilities, Operations and Maintenance for Syracuse City School District, Tom Ferrara, on Friday some members of the school district will be doing a walkthrough of the school to reevaluate and rank construction priorities.
“… Basically we’re working with our executive directors and Chief DeSantis and I will be going through and we’ll be getting together as a team and talking,” said Ferrara.
Ferrara suggested that it may be a possibility to finish just the seating area. The school could cart food upstairs from the downstairs kitchen to serve. More decisions will be made as the school year approaches and the JSCB has its next meeting.
