Construction to Resume Soon on New Elementary School 

The Elementary School Building Committee (ESBC) met on January 17, 2025 and learned that construction will resume as early as the end of this month on the new school at the site of the current Fort River school. Owner’s Project Manager Kseniya Slavsky of Accenture (formerly Ansr Advisory) reported that the general contractor, CTA Construction LLC,  has been onboarded and will be establishing a site presence while they work on final permitting and approvals. 

Slavsky introduced Jeff Hazelwood from CTA who expressed gratitude saying, 

“We’re very happy to be through all of the roadblocks to being in the job. We’re very appreciative that the town stood behind us the whole time.” He was referring to the recent resolution of bid protests made by two workers’ groups and the two other general contractor bidders (Fontaine Bros and J&J Contractors), who also bid on the Jones library project. The Attorney General’s office, while noting that the town engaged in some unusual prequalification procedures, ultimately found that while there were problems with the town’s prequalification procedures, they did not meet “the burden of proving the procurement was improper.”  

Committee member Bruce Coldham asked “Are we yet in a position to be able to answer the question as to the impact of the months of delay that we’ve had on the completion schedule?” Amherst Special Capital Projects Manager Bob Peirent answered that the overall schedule of students occupying the new building in the fall of 2026 with completion of all site work by spring 2027 would hold, but that “it was also going to be necessary to accelerate some of the work activities during the course of construction and as a result of that there are some additional costs that CTA will be incurring to work overtime.” The Indy sought clarification about the amount of the “pre-established upside cap” that was referenced in a December 2024 press release from the town acknowledging the need for overtime to keep the overall project on time. No response was received as of the time of this posting but will be added if that information becomes available.

Slavsky explained that the first work to be accomplished is removing some of the soil that was placed on top of the area on which the foundation will be built in order to preload, or compress, the soil to minimize settlement. “Right now it’s doing a lovely job of acting as a blanket and keeping that ground from freezing we hope, which is a nice benefit as we are starting this foundation work in the winter.” She also said that while there will be more construction traffic on the street, the separate access for school and construction work is already in place, and the construction contract has requirements for the construction vehicles to not enter or exit during school pick up and drop off hours. 

Committee member and Special Education Parents Advisory Council representative Angelica Bernal reminded the team that assurances had also been made to abate loud noise levels and to communicate well about disruptions, particularly for students with extra sensory concerns. Slavsky confirmed that they would be coordinating with CTA and school staff to do so.

Coldham also asked about the energy use intensity (EUI) analysis and plug load update that project consultants Thornton Thomasetti Thomas performed last year and was made available in this meeting’s packet. He thought that the usage assumptions might be too conservative, and that if the building is used more than has been projected. “I’m not so much concerned about the school terms schedules because those are reasonably set, but if this is a popular building and it gets used more than we’ve projected in that chart, then we’ll top over the EUI.” School Facilities Director Rupert Roy-Clark indicated that this is something the net zero subcommittee would be working on.

The ESBC will be meeting monthly during the construction of the building.