Warwick residents gathered into the auditorium of a former high school to take a look at the plans for the city’s future high schools on Wednesday night.

In the first of many special School Committee meetings held in Warwick Veterans Memorial Middle School’s auditorium, the public got the chance to give their thoughts on the plans to the owner’s project manager (OPM) architects and School Committee.

The presentation was led by Chris Spiegel, senior project manager at LeftField Project Management who serves as OPM of both projects. The evening included individual presentations by members of Saccoccio & Associates, the firm designing Toll Gate, and Saam Architecture, the firm designing Pilgrim.

Spiegel and School Committee Chair Shaun Galligan stressed the plans as shown would inevitably be changed before the start of construction.

“What is presented tonight could change tomorrow morning,” he said.

Both schools, according to Spiegel, are at the beginning of Stage 3 of the Rhode Island Department of Education’s process, having already been through the first stages, which are identifying needs and developing a preliminary solution for RIDE’s approval. Stage 4 of the process is the construction of both schools.

Currently, according to Spiegel, LeftField is operating with a hard cost budget of $280 million — $140 million in construction money for each school — and $42 million in soft costs, which, at 12% of the total project, Spiegel said was lower than the industry average of 20%. An additional $28 million is currently being set aside as contingency costs.

The contingency, Spiegel said, was to avoid falling into pitfalls such as those faced in Newport, where contaminated soils caused the construction of the new Rogers High School to be over budget.

“Newport was a project that was well-planned, it was well-designed, just like all projects are, but things happen in construction; there are a lot of unknowns that we have to deal with and plan for,” Spiegel said. “In this case, they ran into unsuitable soils — $4.1 million worth of unsuitable soils. That is a large amount of money on a $120 million project… That is what I’m trying to avoid here.”

As the schools are built, the amount set aside for contingency will go down, as it accounts for unexpected expenses and the remainder goes into the projects.

“As we get past certain risks, such as soils, ledge, these types of items, we slowly can release contingency back into the project,” Spiegel said. “At this phase, it is important for us to identify scope that we can easily add back into the project — things like athletic lighting, some site work, finishes.”

The design phase

Currently, both projects are in the design phase, with LeftField working to get Rhode Island Department of Education approvals on the schematic design, design development and construction documents for both schools before construction can begin. The two new schools are planned to be open in time for the beginning of the 2027-2028 school year, with demolition of the existing schools expected to continue until December of 2027, and site work and field work to be completed in August of 2028. Sites of the existing schools will be developed into athletic fields.

Spiegel said that construction is planned to finish in June of 2027 to give LeftField time to make sure that the new buildings are all set and teachers time to move into their new classrooms.

“All the last little things that you need — screw in lightbulbs, make sure you’ve got your HVAC filters, all this happens,” Spiegel said. “But more importantly, so the teachers have two months to be able to move into the new school… We want to give everybody as much time as possible.”

First look at Toll Gate

Spiegel said at the School Committee’s regular meeting earlier this month that he did not anticipate a full presentation of Toll Gate due to the location of the school having to be moved around on the site. However, Saccoccio ended up being able to provide a walkthrough of their current plans for Toll Gate, with Spiegel saying that they were working right up until a few hours before the meeting to finalize their presentation.

As such, he and Saccoccio Principal Steve Guglielmo cautioned that Toll Gate’s presentation would be a bit less polished than Pilgrim’s, though it did also include a look at floor plans and a virtual walkthrough.

“We had to take a significant pivot on the design of Toll Gate,” Spiegel said. “The site — anyone who’s been to Toll Gate knows that it’s very up and down. We also discovered wetlands that were previously unidentified on the site… They’ve had to substantially redo their work.”

To account for the terrain around the school, which is hilly and contains some wetlands unsuitable for building, Toll Gate is currently planned to be three stories with two academic wings, as opposed to Pilgrim being two stories with three wings.

“That was to eliminate a lot of the excavation, with a lot of ledge and rock — it saved a lot of cost with the project,” Guglielmo said.

The building, similar to Pilgrim’s, is based around a central spine on each floor, though Toll Gate’s is not as long. Walking in from the main entrance on the first floor, one academic wing is to the immediate right, while the auditorium is on the left. Those are followed by a hallway leading to the band room and locker rooms on the left side and the media center/library on the right. Following that is an open-concept cafeteria, which Spiegel said is designed to allow for learning when it is not in use, on the right, and the school’s gymnasium on the left. Behind the cafeteria is the school’s other academic wing.

Similarly to Pilgrim, there is a weight room on the second floor directly overlooking the gym. Some classrooms are also located along the main spine on the second floor, connecting the two learning wings.

The learning wing closest to the main entrance continues onto the third floor, making up the building’s tallest point, while the other learning wing has a basement floor that has another entrance for the school along with its classrooms.

To the north side of the building — between it and Winman Middle School — is the planned football field and track, with another practice field located behind the parking lot at the western limits of the site, behind the school’s main parking lot. Between the football field and Winman is a place for javelin, discus, shot put and hammer throw events for track meets, and current plans show the tennis courts by Winman middle school renovated. While the current CTC parking lot will remain, Toll Gate’s current parking lot will become its baseball and softball fields.

A unique quirk added to Toll Gate’s design involved the bathrooms and concessions stand servicing the school’s football field. While they were originally planned to be in a fieldhouse by the field, the current design has them attached to the outside of the school, with separate entrances for use by spectators during games.

That, Spiegel said, was so both items could be reimbursed by RIDE.

“[The fieldhouse was] non-reimbursable, but if we’re able to build the bathrooms directly across, inside the building, now all that becomes reimbursable because it’s part of the space,” Spiegel said. “These are the types of arguments that we have back and forth with RIDE, and the pivots that occur with each successive design.”

Following a look at the schematic designs, the public got a quick look at the planned inside of Toll Gate’s building. Spiegel and Guglielmo said that they anticipate that the public will get a more detailed look at Toll Gate within the next few months.

Another look at Pilgrim

Pilgrim’s schematic design had been shown off the previous week, but reached a larger audience at the special meeting.

Between the previous two meetings, Saam Senior Associate Katie Kernizan said that Saam adjusted the plans to include a walking track around Pilgrim’s gymnasium. Attendees also got to see a virtual walkthrough of Pilgrim, which was not shown last week.

One of the main design philosophies behind the building’s hallways, Kernizan explained, is vertical transparency, which will connect both floors of the school more than in its current design.

“A strong notion in 21st century learning and our design is that there is both vertical and horizontal transparency, which promotes exposure to different learning types, learning styles, as well as creating safety and security throughout the school,” Kernizan said. “If you have a clear line of sight, you’re able to see whatever’s going on throughout the school.”

Kernizan also noted that some of the angled windows planned for the roof of the school were also planned to give natural light to classrooms located on the interior of the building.

Additionally, Pilgrim’s auditorium is now planned to be reachable from both of the building’s floors, with entrances and exits on the first and second floors.

Tempered air

Kernizan said that Saam would be working with school officials later on in the design process to make decisions on other matters, such as the colors that the building’s walls would be painted and David Polito, the HVAC engineer on both Pilgrim and Toll Gate’s projects, also explained the planned cooling system, which is expected to be used in both schools. Approximately 60% of the school, she said, would be covered by air conditioning, while the other 40% — primarily academic wings and places that would be closed throughout the summer — would use tempered air.

Tempered air, Polito said, would be air that has been run through an air conditioning unit over the summer. His faith in the system, he noted, was enough that he recommended it for one of the schools his kids will attend in the future.

“I live in Somerset; we built a middle school. This is the system I endorsed,” Polito said. “I stand behind that you guys will be very, very happy with it.”

Spiegel estimated the cost per square foot of each building to be around $700. Toll Gate has an estimated square footage of 210,000, and Pilgrim’s estimate stands at 204,172, according to the architects for each building.

While plans have yet to be finalized, Galligan anticipates that the next special meeting will be held in October.

Council, public give feedback

Galligan said that his biggest concerns about the project were the sizes of the parking lots and gymnasiums at both schools. Spiegel said that he would take the capacity of the gymnasiums into account for future plans, and anticipated being able to make the parking lots larger as the project continued, despite RIDE wanting to keep them as small as possible.

“Parking is always going to be a fight with RIDE — they do not want to pay for parking,” Spiegel said. “It’s not really up to them. As you said, the taxpayers are paying 50% of this project. If you guys need parking, we can put in parking, but it’s one of those things where at this stage, schematic design, we try to limit it.”

Spiegel also said that with both schools, making sure that each stakeholder with a say in the project — including Warwick residents and taxpayers, the School Committee, RIDE, the Governor’s Commission on Disabilities and the Warwick Planning Board, Police Department and Fire Department — approved of the design of both schools would be the most important part of his job.

“Some people say that good project management is not knowing how to play every instrument, it’s knowing what makes a good song,” Spiegel said. “That is our goal right now — to get all of these competing interests and find a plan that works for everybody.”

While members of the public were not permitted to ask questions directly to any of the parties presenting, 21 speakers gave their thoughts on what they had seen. By far the most common item requested by members of the public was a second gymnasium, which some said was a necessity.

Multiple speakers, including Warwick Teachers Union President Darlene Netcoh, noted that new facilities and Warwick’s central location within the state could make the schools ideal places to start hosting youth sports events and tournaments.

“We’ve got the airport, we’ve got the commuter rail,” Netcoh said. “It would be a great place to hold tournaments. Instead of our kids getting on a bus and going wherever, we have people coming here, and we charge money and we make money off our fields and build more excitement for the schools. It’s good for the entire city — the hotels, the restaurants.”

Besides the second gym, speakers also mentioned lights at each field and turfing the fields as a top priority not currently included in the plans, mentioning that many students from Warwick who went to out-of-district high schools said that they had done so because of substandard, worn-down fields.

Other speakers were not so optimistic, saying that while they appreciated LeftField’s work and liked the plans, they were skeptical that the two schools could get built on budget.

“These schools cannot be built for $350 million and couldn’t for 2019 construction dollars,” resident Jim Italiane said.

Still, the mood of the audience was overall positive throughout the presentations. With it, however, multiple speakers left a message for LeftField, Saccoccio, Saam, the School Committee and Dimeo, the construction manager for both projects — make the new schools a reality on time and on budget.

“I want this for our families and the students that we teach,” Nick Durand, a physical education teacher at Vets, said. “We have one shot to do this — let’s do it the right way.”

Questions and Answers

The following questions were posted on the Beacon website and Facebook page relative to the new high schools. The answers were provided by Steven Gothberg, director of school construction:

1. Will the new school be built on the same land? Yes, on the athletic fields. New Athletic Fields will be constructed.
2. Is it true that HVAC systems have been eliminated? That is incorrect.
3. Were students asked for their input in the new design? In the visioning sessions students and community were asked for their input.
4. What kind of safety measures will be put in place to prevent intruders? Security measures are not finalized, multiple meetings have been held with Police, Fire and Security consultants with more to come as we move forward with the design.
5. Why is there going to be a flat roof? Pitched roofs are impractical on buildings of this size.
6. Will there be enough parking for students and faculty? Yes, exact numbers are yet to be determined.
7. Why is it called Pilgrim Comprehensive High School? There will not be a name change for Pilgrim, by incorporating Career and Technical programs into Pilgrim it is designated by RIDE as a "Comprehensive High School".