Shore Reg'l shows where $$ would go

BY SUE MORGAN
Staff Writer

For an estimated $3.5 million, the Shore Regional High School District in West Long Branch hopes to upgrade its athletic fields and nearby parking lots.

A new 700-plus-seat auditorium, adjacent backstage area and one enlarged music room is expected to cost $8.9 million.

An expanded single cafeteria and renovations to the high school's kitchen area, a new, energy-efficient boiler system, and improved receiving space could run a total of $10.2 million.

Finally, renovations to classrooms and instructional spaces, such as the grades 9-12 media center and technology and science labs, along with brand-new district administrative offices, are anticipated to cost a total of $15.6 million.

Those four separate items are included in the six listed by Shore Regional's Board of Education in a document presented to district residents who came out to the Sept. 12 information session on the school's forthcoming $49.8 million bond construction referendum.

The same document, titled "Additions and Renovations to the Shore Regional High School," was also distributed to those participating in tours of the one-story, five-wing building between 9 and 11 a.m. on Saturday at the campus in West Long Branch.

Altogether, about 20 residents from the school's four sending communities came out for the tour led by district officials in anticipation of the referendum vote scheduled for this coming Tuesday, according to Steve Brennan, Shore Regional's business administrator.

If a majority of voters in the sending towns - West Long Branch, Oceanport, Sea Bright and Monmouth Beach, green light the 30-year bond issue, taxpayers would pay a proportionate share of the costs of the renovations, the 44-year-old school building's first in more than 30 years.

As Tuesday's vote approaches, district officials are promoting the promise made by the New Jersey Department of Education (DOE) to issue bonds for $17,495,980, or about 35 percent of the total $49,797,221 ticket price, as long as the referendum passes.

That would leave district taxpayers to pick up the remaining $32,301,241 over 30 years.

Not everything inside and outside of the building, which also houses the district's administrative offices, will undergo an extreme makeover, according to Michael Oliveira, the school's facilities manager.

The building's courtyards and the terrazzo floors that top off the school's network of hallways would stay as is, Oliveira told about four residents who took one of the earlier tours.

"We're asking [the architect] not to touch the terrazzo floors," Oliveira said adding that the pipes for the school's heating system run in a crawl space underneath.

The exercise equipment and interior of the school's weight room, itself a renovated version of the building's former automotive shop, would not be changed either, he added.

Because automotive shop, as well as metal shop, are now taught by the Monmouth County Vocational School District, school officials have found new uses, mostly related to athletics, for the spaces where those disciplines were taught, Oliveira explained.

Those parts of the school that are not compliant with the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) need to be reworked to provide that access, said Oliveira.

Most notably, the existing 400-plus seat auditorium, and some restrooms and the risers in the music room are not ADA-compliant, he pointed out along the tour.

ADA compliance throughout the building is a major goal of the referendum, Oliveira said.

If the bond issue passes, the present-day auditorium would be demolished and the district's administrative and guidance offices rebuilt in its place. The offices would then sit directly across from the building's main entrance, Oliveira said.

The larger auditorium with a backstage area, storage space and new music room to its rear, all of which would be ADA-compliant, would be constructed adjacent to those offices, taking the space now occupied by the administration, he explained.

The current music room is used by both the school's instrumental and choral music programs as would be the one proposed to replace it, Brennan said.

Moving into the science classrooms, Oliveira pointed to radiators that date back to the school's opening in 1962 .

Those units would be replaced by modern heating and ventilation systems under the plan, he said.

In the building's two boiler rooms, Oliveira said he hopes to replace the two sets of two large boilers now in each room with a "compensatory boiler system" which has four to five smaller boilers that can be started up one at a time depending on the temperatures outside.

"They are more energy efficient," Oliveira said.

The building plans also call for the cafeteria's two existing dining rooms, one of which was built in 1974, to be reconfigured into one and for the new, updated kitchen to be "ripped out" and relocated to the space's rear.

Restrooms would be situated near the dining room and a serving area similar to those found at colleges would be in place, Oliveira said.

"It would be a multi-purpose space," he said.

Plans also call for the west wall in the "A/B" gymnasium to be demolished to make way for a wrestling room, Oliveira said.

The basketball court would be reconfigured to accommodate six hoops, the floor, bleachers and lighting replaced, he went on. Nearby lockers for both sports teams and physical education classes would be improved.

The smaller "C/D" gymnasium, at the building's rear, would see most of the same changes, Oliveira noted.

In addition, the district's plan calls for lighting and ceilings as well as the student lockers lining the building's hallways to be replaced, he went on.

"The lighting will be changed in every classroom and every hallway," Oliveira said.

Some classrooms, which Oliveira said hold 32 to 36 students each, would be reconfigured according to core curriculum content standards and the state model, according to a district newsletter dated September 2006.

Equipment and technology available in the school's computer and science laboratories would be upgraded under the plan, the newsletter states.

Outside the building, the football field would get an artificial surface, a new scoreboard, bleachers and irrigation system, Oliveira said. Improvements will also come to the field hockey and lacrosse fields.

Should the referendum pass, most of the construction would begin in early 2008 with completion anticipated in September 2009, district officials have said.

The bulk of heavy construction would be done during the summer months and during school breaks, Oliveira said.

While actual enrollment figures for the 2006-07 academic year will not be available until mid-October, Superintendent/Principal Leonard G. Schnapphauf estimated the school's current enrollment at 770 students during the Sept. 12 information session.

Voting hours for the referendum are from 3 to 9 p.m. District officials have advised voters to cast ballots in their regular polling places.