Additions in harmony with existing school buildings

New gyms, classrooms
at Markham Place
and Point Road schools
BY SHERRY CONOHAN
Staff Writer

CHRIS KELLY staff Construction at the Point Road Elementary School, Little Silver, will add six new classrooms.

LITTLE SILVER — With a major construction project under way at both borough schools, including a new gym at each facility as well as new classrooms, the Board of Education hopes to meet the district’s needs for the next decade.

Work at the Point Road School, which houses grades K-4, includes the creation of six new classrooms, which will enable the school to go from four to five classrooms per grade, according to Superintendent of Schools Marjorie Heller. She said that will result in a reduction of class size from 24 or 25, as in recent years, to 19-21 in the upcoming school year.

"That was a concern," she said during a tour of the project sites. "We wanted to reduce class size."

The construction of a new gym at the Markham Place School, with grades 5-8, has taken on enormous importance to the borough as well as the school district.

CHRIS KELLY staff A new gymnasium is being added to Markham Place School.

The massive building, being erected in front and to the east side of the school, was designed to echo the architecture of the existing school, which is held in high esteem by borough residents, Heller said, and to make an impression on the downtown district it overlooks.

The borough just completed a streetscape remake of the downtown district.

Heller said the architect, Thomas Kocubinski of Lawrenceville, whose practice includes the restoration of older buildings, was "very excited" when he saw the 1930s-era Markham Place School. She said he determined to make the front of the new gym echo the existing school.

"This has been designed to mirror the old building with the pre-cast concrete bands and circular windows," she explained.

She pointed to the curved arch over huge windows on the front of the new building, where a concrete band was being put into place as she spoke, and said, "They call that an eyebrow.

"The construction people are intrigued because they don’t usually get to do this," she added.

The referendum authorizing construction approved the expenditure of $13.8 million for the project, with just over $4 million of that sum coming from the state school construction fund.

The new addition and renovations at the Point Road School are expected to be completed in time for the school’s delayed opening on Sept. 13, the Monday after Labor Day.

The new addition at the Markham Place School has a target finish date of Dec. 31.

The new gyms at both the Markham Place School and the Point Road School will have standard-size basketball courts suitable for adult use, and both will be accessible to the public for recreational purposes. Heller said the gyms and associated bathrooms can be shut off from the rest of their respective schools and will be available to borough recreation programs.

"We like to make all these things accessible [to the public] because the community supported us," she said, referring to the referendum to finance the project, which passed on the first presentation. "They saw the need and should be able to reap the reward and utilize the schools."

Heller recalled the controversy early on as to whether borough voters would accept two new gyms. She said the board even directed the architect to design half a gym for the Point Road School, which has the younger children. Heller said that then, at a public forum on the plans, someone in the audience said, ‘Let’s do this correctly so that it’s useful when it’s done.’

She recalled that the architect said that, incrementally, it wouldn’t cost much more to build a full-size gym at Point Road.

So the board went with a full gym, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Neither school had a regulation-size basketball court before the construction of the new gyms.

Construction of the Markham Place gym is making possible the conversion of the old gym, with a substandard basketball court and no bleachers on either side, into a cafetorium to be used as a cafeteria for lunch and auditorium for performances. It already has a stage.

That, in turn, will allow the present cafeteria on the lower level of the school to be converted into a teachers’ room, teachers’ offices and a copy room for teachers. Teachers currently have no room of their own.

Construction of the new gym at the Point Road School will allow the present open-space cafetorium, which has been used for multiple functions including a gym, to be enclosed and used strictly as a cafeteria and auditorium, according to Heller.

Heller said the floor of the new gym at the Markham Place School would be a "beautiful wood floor," and the floor in the
Point Road School would be a composite floor. She said both gyms would have sound-absorption panels.

She said she expects the Point Road School gym, which will have no bleachers, to be used by the community as much as the Markham School gym.

The gym addition at Point Road includes six new classrooms. One classroom in the existing school is being taken, partially, to provide access to the new addition. The access is via a new hallway built on one side of the room. The remainder of the room is being divided into two small instructional spaces for special education classes, according to Heller.

The work at Point Road also includes a bump-out for the library in its existing location and a bump-out for the teachers’ room next to the front office.

Six big trailers are on the grounds to hold furniture and books from the classrooms and the library during construction.

"The library is going to be completely redone, completely refurbished," Heller said.

In addition, she noted, the borough is expanding a ball field adjacent to the school on the Point Road side.

The Point Road School was built in 1959 and had additions in 1972 and 1994. The current project is the fourth structural activity at the school.

Heller said the entrance to the Markham Place gym from local ball fields will be by a window-lined gallery. She said the wing includes two new classrooms that will be available to the community for functions at night along with the gym and bathrooms. There also will be expanded parking for the public by the tennis courts as part of the project, she said.

The entrance to the gym from the school will be flanked by two trophy cases with a skylight overhead, she added. "So there’s a very pretty entrance from the building to the gym," she said.

On that side of the new wing with the gym there also will be two new rooms — a sixth-grade science lab and a music room. The old music room will become the art classroom.

Renovations at the Markham Place School also include a new boiler to replace a 1930s model.

At the Point Road School, Heller said, a soffit is being added atop the one-story structure that will be green to tie it into the new addition. She pointed to colored blocks and design in the new addition that relate to the existing structure in color and its mosaic foundation.

The "old plain vanilla" at Point Road will be spiced up with the new construction, she said.

Heller also said the public has asked for the hill in front of the new Markham Place addition to be restored for sledding, which the school district is doing as part of the project.

"They want the hill restored for sledding, so part of our plan is to restore the slope so the kids can go sledding," she said.

Heller said there was an effort from the start to "harmonize" the Markham Place addition to the borough’s streetscape, and from the feedback she’s received, people are happy with the result.

"It’s paid off beautifully," she said of the design effort. "I think it’s more beautiful than even we thought."

The general contractor on the job is Kelso Construction Co., of Manasquan, and the construction project manager is Vincentsen/Thompson/Meade Inc., of Westfield.

Heller said she hoped these improvements would carry the district through the next five to 10 years.

"Without big changes, without big program changes being mandated by the state, I think that they will last that long," she said.