The finishing touches on the complete renovation of Washington Elementary appear to be on schedule to be done before Thanksgiving.
Vision 117 Consultant Bob Roads says that November 6th appears to be the date to mark on the calendars for the school to be finished: “We finally had some meaningful changes at Washington this week, which is helping, I hope, to wrap up the project. The rooftop unit that had gone bad over the gym has been fixed. They fixed it, I think, last Wednesday. The flooring crew moved in Wednesday. They started worked on Thursday on the gym. They estimate about 6 weeks to finish up the floor, the sealer, the stripes, the paint, everything. Then, they will do the bleachers and finish up the rest of the gym. They told me Wednesday that they were anticipating being done with the gym project around November 6th.”
Roads says that the long awaited full electrical panel will arrive and a small list of items will tie off the project during Parent-Teacher Conferences early next month: “Johnco is estimating that they will complete the punch list items around the weekend of October 6th. That’s the weekend where the permanent electrical system is going in. They are going to start on a Thursday night. That system will enter the building through a window in the cafeteria. They will then lower it to the floor, take it over and start making that installation. They plan on having everything done over that 5-day weekend period that there is, I think, a teachers’ institute on Friday and Columbus Day on Monday. Essentially, the school will be unoccupied because they will have to shut the power down. With that being said, we are hoping that most of the punch list will be done in the next 3-4 weeks and the gym will be open before Thanksgiving.”
Roads told the District 117 Board of Education that the Eisenhower Elementary School project is moving along at an entirely different pace.
He says he only has one bit of criticism on the fast-moving renovation: “Quite a bit of the walls have already gone up on the inside of the building. Quite a bit of the drywall has been installed. Quite a bit of the electrical has been installed. They started sewer work on the inside of the building this week. They are hoping to start with the masons, if not this week, early next week to start installing the new bathroom fixtures. If I had to say anything at all negative about Eisenhower, it’s a shame we wasted all of this dry weather and didn’t get to some of the outside work done while the weather was dry. Hopefully, we will still get it done this Fall prior to bad weather.”
Eisenhower is expected to be ready and complete by the beginning of the next school year in August 2024.