Wellwood Middle School is a historic staple in the Fayetteville-Manlius community but, recently, there have been talks among the school administration and board of education about taking action to improve the aging, outdated and unhealthy building.
At the Sept. 21 meeting the F-M Board of Education, President Jeff Brown announced that Wellwood would have a place on the agenda for all future planned board meetings.
“Figuring out what to do in this situation is one of the top priorities for the board this year,” said Brown. “We will try to discuss it at every meeting.”
Elena Romano, chairman for the F-M facilities committee, said the main goal of the committee at this point in regards to Wellwood is to secure a real estate feasibility study at Wellwood and review the building conditions once the survey is released. The facilities committee, which is comprised of four board of education members who deal with the needed repairs and upgrades at all six school buildings and adjourning properties, said they would like to have a board of education working session in November, and hope to make a presentation to the public about the possible options for Wellwood in December.
Wellwood Middle school served as the Fayetteville High School until 1965, when it became a part of the Fayetteville-Manlius School district as the middle school location for residents of Fayetteville.
According to the Sept. 8 draft meeting minutes of the facilities committee, the following are the top issues relating to Wellwood: basement classrooms causing health issues for teachers, the building having old boilers, a lack of ADA compliance in the building, the fact that the power for Fayetteville Elementary runs through Wellwood and a lack of modernity in the learning environment.
“We need to consider our options for Wellwood and we can’t work independently from other things going on in the district,” said Romano.
Michael Vespi, assistant superintendent for business service, added that Wellwood has had mold concerns for the past two years and that teachers have had to move out of these problem classrooms and move students into learning in the auditorium due to health issues. Vespi also said the HVAC system in the school is outdated and would need to be upgraded.
Also at the Sept. 21 board meeting, Steve Heaslip, an account executive from Siemens, presented an Energy Performance Contract (EPC) that showed by upgrading all of the facilities in the district to energy saving systems, the district could expect to see nearly $4 million in guaranteed savings with an annual savings of $240,000 per year, which would allow the district money for capital improvements without a referendum vote.
“It really is an alternative means of funding building improvements with no cost impact because it is funded through the savings you’ll get with improvements,” said Heaslip. “There is a savings guarantee in place so when we do the assessment and say what savings the district can get, we have to guarantee that or give you a check for the difference if it doesn’t reach that.”
According to Siemen’s preliminary assessment, by upgrading the boilers and the lights in the F-M district buildings, as well as adding controls for electronic equipment, installing water lines in the soffit at Enders Road, increasing in number of solar panels, air handling/ventilators replacement, cooler/chiller optimization, water conservation and building envelope improvements.
Some members of the board questioned how the future of Wellwood being up in the air might affect the EPC, but Heaslip said any projects or changes to any of the buildings would be taken into consideration when carrying out the EPC.
Heaslip said that the projected timeline for an EPC is approximately two years due to a long wait time for State Education Department approval. It is possible that the work can begin in summer of 2017.
“An EPC can reduce the scope of a capital project without voter authorization because of guaranteed savings,” said Vespi. “So you can kind of look it from an investment portfolio situation. When an investment portfolio, you want to diversify and if you think of that is the same manner, this is really how you diversify to bring about holistic capital projects… It can be a long process, so it’s beneficial to get it started now.”
The board of education voted to move forward with the EPC by approving a request for proposals, and additional approval will be needed before any improvements would occur.
