High school renovation options and cost cutting measures remain under consideration at Freeport Area School District

Freeport Area School District officials continue to struggle with cutting the costs of renovating their high school.

The school board, administration and architects from HHSDR Architects spent most of last week’s board meeting discussing two master plans with varying options.

The initial plan carries a $71.6 million price tag, while a second option officials came up with would cost $60.1 million.

“After our November meeting, the feedback from the board was, ‘How can we cut the costs?’ ” Superintendent Ian Magness said to the board. “You challenged us to do that so, we turned to Option 2.”

“It was a lot of work to drop it by $10 million,” he said. “Give credit to the guys from HHSDR.”

Both plans, to be done in four phases and completed by Aug. 1, 2028, include building two major additions.

One is a new auditorium next to where the current one is, at the end of the building fronting the campus main entrance from Route 356. In the vacated auditorium space, choral rooms and storage areas would be built in both plans.

The second major addition common to both is construction of a cafeteria wing including a food court, kitchen storage and office space and redoing parking areas and/or transportation accesses. That would be done in the third phase of both plans at a cost of $7.1 million to $7.8 million.

Project flexibility

Financing the work at the high school remains an open proposition. Magness pointed out to the school directors that most school renovations are financed by a large bond issue or bank loan.

“In this case, we did it in phases so you could stop and start as you want to,” he said.

“You see that you are not borrowing any more than it takes to complete that phase,” Magness added.

District officials at previous meetings had discussed having a new band room and chorus room as part of the renovations, as well as adding small tax increases for a few years at or under the state’s taxing index for school districts to help pay for the project and keep up with revenue needs.

The high school was built in 1960. Although there were additions built in 1967 and 1987, much of the building is unchanged since it was built.

The first two phases, the same under both plans, involves upgrading the electrical and HVAC capabilities, including a new boiler, and renovating the three-classroom science wing at a cost of $3 million. Work on that already has begun and is expected to be completed before the start of next school year.

Money for that was obtained through a bank loan at 4.84% that district officials say will save about $60,000 in interest payments.

Also part of both plans is the construction of 14 to 16 temporary classrooms in the existing auditorium and cafeteria then renovating 16 existing classrooms and science rooms on a rotating basis over a nine-to- 12-month period from March 2025, through January 2026. The cost is projected at between $25.3 and $27.2 million.

Where options differ

Classroom construction is where the two plans diverge in construction and cost. The cost in one option would be $28.4 million while the second would be $15.7 million.

Construction of three more building additions under the first classroom option — a new gymnasium, an office wing and media center — are the driving factors in the cost difference.

The new gym would be built in the space between the new auditorium and the current gym. The existing main gym also would be renovated as an auxiliary gym. The cafeteria would be turned into athletic team rooms and a fitness room.

It would also require the removal of the existing high school office suite. The high school office suite would be moved to the new office addition at the front of the building, beyond the new gym.

On the other side of the new gym, the media center would be built in the area now occupied by the nurse’s office and would extend into an existing interior courtyard.

The other option involves the renovation of the existing main gymnasium, conversion of the current cafeteria space into a media center and locker rooms.

Both plans estimate the cost of that particular work around $8.3 million. Both would do away with the current auxiliary gym.

The first option converts it into administrative offices and a student center. The other turns that space into a multi-purpose room.

New gym costly

The biggest construction decisions are whether to build a new gym and what to do about the administration offices.

There appears to be a board consensus that the district needs a new gym. The current one was built when the school was constructed in the 1960s and seats about 600 people.

The new gym proposed in the first option would add another 400 seats.

But board members are concerned about whether to risk an increase in the costs of both construction and financing if they decide to hold off now.

“This same gym might cost us 20% more if we wait to do it 10 years from now,” School Director John Haven said.

“The gym is a big ticket item,” said board president Adam Toncini. “It’s a huge amount of money if we decide to go that way.”

What to do with admin building?

Referring to the cost savings in the second option, architect Vincent Ordinario, HHSDR’s president, told the board, “Another cost savings we didn’t talk about is the administration office. It will stay where it is now instead of being relocated to another building.”

However, School Director Michael Huth said leaving the administration building where it is may not be prudent. He said that’s because PennDOT has plans to widen Route 356. And that could affect the building, which is much closer to the road than the high school.

“There’s nowhere the existing building for it (administrative offices) to go,” Huth said.

The architects mentioned the possibility of using the two interior courtyards at the high school, which Magness said are underutilized, to work the administrative offices into the second option.

The board asked the architects to look at the feasibility of doing that and report back to the board.