High School, Town Office Bids Cleared To Go

By John Voket

On May 6, the State Traffic Commission approved one of two traffic studies, freeing the town to go to bid to convert Bridgeport Hall on the Fairfield Hills campus into centralized town and school offices. The second approval was one of more than 30 recommendations required by the State Department of Education (SDE) to approve reimbursement and green light the bidding process for the Newtown High School expansion.

According to a message from Newtown school Business Manager Ronald Bienkowski, that full checklist was approved at the SDE Wednesday, and that his office would move forward with a timeline plan introduced to the school board this week.

During a report to the Legislative Council on May 7, First Selectman Joe Borst said the STC signed off on the Fairfield Hills drainage plan, and that it was “OK to finish the bid package for Bridgeport Hall.”

The cafeteria and social center that formerly served the Fairfield Hills state hospital will be re-used as a new municipal office complex, centralizing town offices from three separate locations into a single facility. Town officials have said they hope to occupy the new offices by spring 2009.

The back-to-back approvals at the state level secure the approximate $12,283,000 reimbursement committed by the state to the town to underwrite a portion of the high school construction. There will also be a maximum $600,000 reimbursement forthcoming from the state to cover some of the costs of developing school district office space in the new town hall complex.

The timeline document circulated to the school board this week, which was prepared for the district by the project’s construction management firm, the Morganti Group, indicates a meeting will be held May 15 with the high school principal, the school board, Parks and Recreation department personnel, and the Public Building and Site Committee.

Bid documents are expected to be delivered by the architect firm Fletcher Thompson by Monday, May 19, for final review by the district and other parties involved. After refining and several other presentations and meetings, the timeline dictates the bids will be advertised beginning June 5, and bid documents will be available to bidders by June 9. One month later, on July 9, the bids will be due.

Morganti expects to present the qualifying bids and request approval to proceed with construction from town officials on July 29, and to notify contractors they have been awarded contracts July 30.