NEWS

A look at latest Pilgrim plans

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Those in attendance at Tuesday’s school committee meeting got a sneak preview of the updated schematic design for the new Pilgrim High School.

LeftField Project Management Senior Project Manager Chris Spiegel said that the design will be submitted to the Rhode Island Department of Education, and is the first of three necessary submissions — followed by a design development and construction documentation — before construction can begin.

The design showcased at the meeting, according to Spiegel, was Stage 3 of the schematic design, and essentially a floor plan for the building. The first two stages had already been approved by RIDE.

Spiegel cautioned that the design would not be an exact rendering of the final product.

“It is an inevitability that the design will change from what we are showing you today,” he said.

The current design

Saam Architecture, in charge of design for Pilgrim, gave the presentation on what the Pilgrim of the future is currently planned to look like.

Plans show a two-story school based around one long hallway, or “spine” as Saam designer Katie Kernizan referred to it, connecting a front-facing public entrance with a back entrance to be used by faculty. Viewed from above, the school roughly forms the shape of a capital E, with the gymnasium, auditorium, cafeteria and library on the left side of the spine, as well as a workout room on the second floor, three wings of classrooms forming the spokes of the E, and outdoor learning spaces in between the wings.

Key considerations, according to Kernizan, are ensuring that the school’s auditorium is near the school’s front entrance, the gymnasium connects the school’s academic spaces with athletic fields and learning communities consisting of different subjects are created.

Kernizan noted that one of the major differences between Stage 3 and previous stages of the schematic design is that Stage 3 took value engineering, which had been mentioned as a method to save money by potentially taking certain facilities out, into account.

“There has been a very clean evolution… to now this floor plan,” she said.

Other major considerations made in the design include a central learning and dining commons to help connect students and letting as much natural lighting into the building as possible. Stage 3 also included a northwestern learning wing consisting of vocational and career and technical programs.

Current seating numbers in the gymnasium are around 1,300 maximum, according to Saam’s website, with bleachers being able to seat approximately 800 and the auditorium around 720, according to Spiegel.

School Committee Chair Shaun Galligan said that his main concern is the number of parking spaces, which the design put at 287, short of the school’s current 419, though Spiegel assured him that 287 will not be the final number of parking spots at Pilgrim.

“This is a pivot that we made for RIDE… I would be hard pressed to say that that will be what we end up with,” Spiegel said. “By the next meeting, we’ll be able to tell you what the correct number is.”

A more thorough walkthrough

For next week’s special meeting, Spiegel said that LeftField would take a special focus on explaining RIDE’s process to the public and the rationale behind some of their decisions as it relates to that.

In addition, Spiegel said that there will likely be a 3D-modeled walkthrough of the new Pilgrim.

Plans to view Toll Gate’s schematic design, meanwhile, have been postponed, and will likely only be showcased in a limited format next week.

Spiegel said that because of concerns about the Toll Gate site, Saccoccio and Associates, the architecture firm focused on designing Toll Gate, along with other consultants, had to change the location and design of the building in order to stay on budget.

“The building design is, I would say, about 75% different than what it was before,” Spiegel said. “It doesn’t mean that the spaces are any different, but it means that the building design is much more efficient than it was previously.”

Spiegel stressed that the Toll Gate project as a whole is still on schedule, but was further behind than Pilgrim’s at this point due to the redesign.

Work enabling future construction at Toll Gate has been ongoing since mid-July, and Spiegel said it is scheduled to wrap up by the end of the week.

A website made to showcase the buildings’ plans to the public will officially go live at the end of the Aug. 21 meeting, according to Spiegel.

“We’re hoping that by this meeting on the 21st, we’ll be able to assuage people’s concerns about the projects,” Spiegel said.

Other meeting business

Director of Capital Projects Steve Gothberg said that with two weeks left to go before the start of school, all of Warwick’s schools should be ready to open — though the timeline could be a bit tight.

“Three of these projects really should take six months,” Gothberg said. “That’s the timeline that the Greenwood project, the Warwick Neck project should have, and the Greene building project should take about three months... We’re jamming that amount of work into seven weeks.”

While Gothberg anticipates that students will be able to go back to school in each building, he noted that work on Oakland Beach Elementary School’s windows will start next week, and will likely continue through the beginning of the school year, though work will not be done while students are learning. Work installing bookshelves in Oakland Beach’s classrooms will be during the school year, and is set to start on Sept. 9.

Work on the elevator at Warwick Neck Elementary School is also anticipated to continue into the school year, with Gothberg calling it the “most difficult” of the summer projects.  

“I don’t see any way around that, but it will be relatively quiet work,” Gothberg said.

Additionally, Gothberg said that contents from Holliman Elementary School have been moved into the Gorton Administration Building, where Holliman will be learning as work is done on the school.

The School Committee also created the Community Outreach Subcommittee through a 4-0 vote during the meeting, with committee member Michelle Kirby-Chapman not in attendance. The committee, according to Galligan, would establish a network of Warwick Public Schools alumni, and would be similar to alumni programs in districts such as East Greenwich.

“I’ve been wanting to see something like this for a very long time,” committee member Karen Bachus said.

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