Construction begins for $46M middle school project

D’Huy Engineering Inc. of Bethlehem and the Bethlehem Area School District hosted a groundbreaking ceremony this morning for the $46 million construction of the Nitschmann Middle School on West Broad Street.

Pre-bid estimates for the project came in at $53.7 million, said Mike Spadafora, senior project manager for D’Huy Engineering, which is providing construction management services. The completion of the 180,000-square-foot building, going up next to the existing one, is set for June 2017. In June 2018, the company will complete a new sports field on the campus.

“We are going to build it [the new school] on the sports field that’s there now,” Spadafora said.

Once the new school is built, workers will demolish the old school.

The project is designed to be a sustainable, energy-efficient facility that will achieve a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Gold designation, said Joseph Roy, superintendent for Bethlehem Area School District.

The project received a $2 million grant from the state Department of Community and Economic Development that will go along with the development of the LEED building.

The district also has about $5 million going toward the project costs from the district’s capital reserve fund; the remainder of the costs will be borrowed from a bond sale, Roy said.

Roy said the district felt it was important to keep the new school in the west Bethlehem neighborhood and that it would be designed as a LEED building, similar to the recently built Broughal Middle School in south Bethlehem.

The architects for the Nitschmann project, Breslin Ridyard Fadero Architects of Allentown, are a husband and wife team who designed the school they once attended as children, Roy added.

“It’s a pretty efficient design,” Roy said. “It will have an auditorium on one end, a gym on the other and several stories of classrooms. It will allow us to deliver a 21st century curriculum.”

Source: LVB.com