BY ANDY GARDNER
North Country This Week

MASSENA -- Massena school district officials are hoping to have bids for the first phase of their $49 million capital project by March with work starting in the summer.

At the Thursday, Jan. 16 Board of Education meeting, Superintendent Pat Brady said the first phase will include about $29 million worth of work. He said that includes parking lots, sidewalks, fields, playgrounds at all three elementary schools, full replacing of roofing at all three elementary schools and at the high school and junior high, and asbestos abatement.

"We’re at the point of submitting that to the State Education Department,” he told the board. "Hopefully our bids will come in well when they come in March. If there's money left over from phase one, we'll put it into phase two."

Brady said there will be big changes in front of all three elementary schools and the junior high. Each will have separate areas for parents to pick up or drop off students, with a separate bus loop in front of each building.

“Buses will go one way ... to the front loop ... and the community and parents will go the other way and there will be a drop-off area there,” Brady told the board. "A lot of our parking lots and so forth will be under construction. It's going to be difficult to get into the buildings in the summer.”

He said there will also be improvements on the athletic fields, including a new baseball field, new dugouts, new infield, a new backstop and drainage work in the back fields.