Hempfield considers redoing auxiliary gym roof, following auditorium roof replacement in August

After replacing its auditorium roof this summer, Hempfield Area High School may see a new roof covering its auxiliary gym.

The 7,500-square-foot section of roof is beyond its useful life and leaks into the gym, said Damion Spahr, project executive of the district’s construction manager, SitelogIQ.

The gym will require additional repairs if the roof is not fixed soon, Spahr said.

In June, the district spent about $500,000 to replace the 9,500-square-foot roof above its high school auditorium seating area and stage.

A Carlisle PVC rubber roof was installed at the end of August, according to board meeting minutes.

SitelogIQ recommended Monday that the district replace the roof above the high school auxiliary gym, which houses the softball and baseball teams’ batting cages.

The batting cages have been closed because of the leaking roof, Superintendent Mark Holtzman said.

“To have a space in our high school that large that’s not utilized at all, to me is not a good idea. That’s when you have issues with growing mold in there. There’s a million other things that could be happening,” he said. “So we get that space opened up again, get it repurposed, and being able to utilize it as potentially part of our project as a place to house things is going to be huge for us.”

The project could cost more than $300,000, with an additional $10,000 to $25,000 allocated for temporary repairs across the next few years, Spahr said.

The board could award bids for the project as early as next week, he said, and construction could be completed by winter.

SitelogIQ also advised the district to hold off on replacing the penthouse section of the auxiliary gym roof, which houses an HVAC system. This would add $20,000 to the project cost, Spahr said.

“That penthouse, we’re recommending that we defer that and the roofing of that. We can do that roof when we come and do the rest of the roof for the school,” Spahr said, referencing the improvements that will come with the district’s high school renovation project.

Related:

• New Hempfield Area architect approaching high school project from the ground up
• After hiring new architect, Hempfield ‘moving forward with a stronger team’ for renovation project
• Hempfield Area works through ‘legal ramifications’ in effort to use former architect’s work for renovation
• Hempfield Area out $2.4M in payments to architectural firm for high school project
• As architect for Hempfield Area High School project resigns, district looks for new firm
• Hempfield high school project plan is millions of dollars over budget, must be revised

Construction for the high school project has been on hold since August 2023, when bids for some of the work revealed the project’s cost had ballooned to almost $150 million — nearly $20 million more than expected.

The interior of the high school was proposed to be gutted and renovated over the course of the next three years, leaving most of the exterior intact with some additions.

Core Architects resigned from the project in February. The district paid more than $2.4 million to the firm for its work on the project.

The district hired Crabtree, Rohrbaugh & Associates in April to take over the project — working alongside SitelogIQ and owner’s rep McKinley Architecture and Engineering.