Aspen School District construction on schedule for early August completion
The $5 million in repairs are on budget
Lucy Peterson/The Aspen Times
Construction at the Aspen School District is on budget and on schedule as crews work on finishing major upgrades at each school before teachers and students return in August.
A crew of about 85 people got to work on about $5 million in repairs at the elementary, middle and high schools June 8 — two days after the last day of school June 6. Repairs on the high school roof, flooring in every school, parking lots, and other district facilities are taking up much of what is left of the 2020 voter-approved $114 million bond.
“Overall, it’s been a great summer, great progress,” Director of Facilities Joe Waneka said. “For it being the middle of July, we’re feeling good.”
Aspen High School
Floors in the major community areas of the high school were completed in about two weeks. It will now make room for summer camps to take over the space while construction crews replace carpets in the high school classrooms of which the camps were making use.
The floor of the Skier Dome, a gymnasium court often used for practices and some sports games, was refinished to add about 20 years to its lifespan, Waneka said. The floor is almost 80 years old.
About $40,000 saved for emergency funds was used to replace a portion of concrete sidewalk outside of the high school and district offices that crumbled at the end of the school year. Another portion of sidewalk at the west entrance of the high school cracked just a year after installation — but it is under warranty and will be replaced with no cost to the school district, Waneka said.
He’s working to get most of the surrounding sidewalks heated so it can avoid water seeping into cracks, freezing, and expanding the cracks even further.
Aspen Middle School
Aspen Middle School is closed all summer for renovations, including floor replacements and upgrading the football field to address ADA compliance.
The sidewalk and road leading up to the middle school were torn up and replaced; the road along the middle school entrance will have an ADA-compliant speed bump, and the sidewalk below the overhang at the middle school will now be heated.
Construction is also underway on a ramp leading to the football field. Bringing the field up to ADA compliance was one of the priorities of the 2020 bond.
The district will also install a wheelchair platform next to the field that will accommodate two wheelchairs, Waneka said. The platform will not be installed until December.
Aspen Elementary School
Floors in every classroom at the elementary school were replaced.
Construction crews are also working to replace fan coils and add pipes to the school’s boiler system, which haven’t been replaced in 30 years, Waneka said. The upgrade will allow for more cooling in the elementary school (in place of air conditioners), and make future upgrades to a cooling system easier to accomplish.
‘Stewards of resources’
The district sought ways to dispose of the construction in sustainable ways, Waneka said. The carpet that was torn up will be sent to a facility in Georgia that peels the carpet fibers from the rubber backing, both of which will be recycled.
The carpet that is replacing the old flooring is from recycled materials, he said. Construction crews were also able to transplant grass sod to other parts of the district to save from buying new sod.
Any metal that will be removed from the fan coil replacements can also be recycled, he said.
“We’re trying to be good stewards of our resources,” Waneka said.
The district also received a $33,342 rebate from Black Hills Energy because it installed a new, efficient boiler in the high school. The rebate will help pay for other maintenance needs across the district, while the boiler added efficiency to the school’s operations, he said.
Improvements at the school district are expected to be nearly completed by Aug. 3, he said. Teachers will return to classrooms Aug. 12, but some may want to return earlier to reconfigure their classrooms since all materials and furniture were removed to replace the flooring.
Waneka had a contingency plan if construction crews needed to make emergency replacements, but everything is on or ahead of schedule, he said.
The improvements are some of the last projects of the 2020 bond, which the district must spend in full by 2025. Voters approved the measure that added about 50 units to the district’s employee housing stock, updated classrooms, and addressed significant deferred maintenance projects.
About $40 million of the 2020 bond went toward deferred maintenance projects. As the bond dollars are finally spent down, Waneka is trying to get the most life out of the current improvements.
The Aspen School District Board of Education decided against pursuing another bond measure on the November ballot to ease the burden on taxpayers, but discussed pursuing Debt Free Schools Act funding, which could help address future deferred maintenance needs as they arise. The funding would result in about $4 million in tax revenue for the district annually if approved.
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