Historic Chicopee High School Undergoes Upgrade

CHICOPEE, Mass. — A groundbreaking ceremony for the roughly $38 million renovation of the old Chicopee High School was held on July 22. The more-than-110-year-old building will undergo significant changes to convert the building into a middle school and bring the antiquated facility up to 21st century standards.

Springfield, Mass.-based Fontaine Brothers Inc. is serving as the general contractor, while locally based Caolo & Bieniek Associates Inc. designed the renovation work.

“[The building] is a 100-plus-year-old school that many people in the community attended. It’s highly thought of by the community not only because it’s a great, stately building, but it also has enough space inside for it to serve a lot of community use outside of school,” said Curtis Edgin, principal at Caolo & Bieniek Associates Inc. “When they constructed a new high school, this building was being underutilized. Renovating it and keeping it as a resource for the community was very important.”

About half of the building has been vacant since the new Chicopee High School was constructed more than a decade ago. In the meantime, Chicopee Academy occupied the third and parts of the first floor of the building, while school maintenance and other departments also had offices on the first floor. All offices and activities will temporarily be relocated to the Southwick Street School during construction.

The new school will replace the Fairview Veterans Memorial Middle School, which will later be turned into a preschool and elementary school, reported MassLive. The building’s façade will remain the same, but there are plans to move the cafeteria, improve utilities and replace windows.

Edgin said that the facility’s operational systems would be brought up to 21st century standards. For instance, the building will get all new MED systems and FP, the building envelope will be improved, there will be new exterior windows, and it will be accessible to current codes as well as undergo seismic upgrades.

“The systems are much more efficient,” Edgin said. “Lighting is LED, there are daylighting controls, and the facility will be LEED-certified. The materials being used in the project are selected based on their maintainability.”

Construction is scheduled for completion in time for the start of school in fall 2015. When construction is complete, the city will have two middle schools located on opposite sides of the city rather than less than a mile apart from each other. Students will be redistricted based on what school is closest to their home. The shifting of student enrollment in the schools is a major reason for the fast construction time and is why the contractor started construction as soon as students were dismissed for the summer.

“The project is helping with the district’s realignment plans,” Edgin added. “Geographically it makes more sense. They will have two middle schools and two high schools that will be positioned to be advantageous to the community. This building was underutilized in the past, but now they can integrate their current education plan with a great building.”
Most of the funding for the project will come from the state, which is reimbursing 80 percent of the costs up to an about $37.9 million cap. There are concerns that the project may be $710,000 over budget and that the city may have to pay that additional cost.

The state was not originally in favor of the project; however, Jack McCarthy, executive director of the state Building Authority, said at the ceremony that once he toured the facility, he understood why the historic building was an important part of the community.