Sullivan West construction
moving ahead

By TOM KANE

CALLICOON — Sullivan West Central School District construction advisors told school board members last Thursday evening, January 17, that the construction and reconstruction schedules are on target.

“Narrowsburg’s reconstruction work has already begun and we expect to be on the street with bid announcements by the third week in March for the two other schools,” said Turner Company’s pre-construction director Luis Rodriguez. “We expect reconstruction work on Delaware Valley and Jeffersonville to begin around May 1.”

Rodriguez said that the bids for the new high school will be on the street the first week of February, with awarding of contracts by March 15.

The contractors working on the high school building site have completed the first layer of asphalt and most of the curbing has been poured, said school superintendent Michael Johndrow in the district’s recent newsletter. All the areas where buildings will be located have been cleared, leveled and made ready for foundation work, he said. In the spring, the construction of buildings should begin, with the work continuing on the athletic fields.

When asked by a board member about the news of the Tri-Valley school district being millions of dollars over budget, facing the necessity to scale back the project and even to go to voters again, Rodriquez said, “We are talking to those companies and finding out that the project had too many high-cost items.”

Rodriguez said that he did not expect anything like that happening again with the Sullivan West project since Turner and the Sullivan West board had built safeguards into the bid process.

Three months ago, Sullivan West had a similar experience as Tri-Valley when its bids came in $8 million over budget. A second series of bids went out that were more realistic, according to school officials.

In Narrowsburg, a special shift from 3:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. will handle heavy work that causes noise that would disturb the tranquility needed to hold classes, school officials said.