BY ANDY GARDNER
North Country This Week

MASSENA -- The second phase of the Massena Central School District capital project will be split in half, with work being done in both the summer of 2021 and 2022.

District contractors gave an update to the Massena school board during their Thursday, Nov. 19 meeting.

The second and third phases are because of savings from the first phase that was rolled over into lesser-priority items that were scratched from the initial project.

The district has $30 million set aside for the next two phases.

"That's really much more work than really can be accomplished in one summer of construction," Ed Bernhauer, an architect from the IBI group, told the school board. "We're dividing that $30 million into about $15 million for each summer."

He told the board they expect to seek State Education Department approval at the end of the month, and take public bids in early 2021.

"We're going to be doing an expedited review ... four-to-six week timeframe. Sometimes it's shorter," Bernhauer said.

He said it will include improvements at all elementary schools, the transportation building and high school. The high school work will include a new boiler room, and may include paving the John Story Trail.

For phase three, Bernhauer said they are looking at submitted plans to the State Education Department for approval in January, and will take bids in March 2021, or possibly later in the year.

"We can pick and choose when we want to go out to bid for that," he said.

That will include more work at the high school, junior high, central administration and transportation building.

Meanwhile, district contractors are working on getting a $100,000 capital outlay project going. Bernhauer said that will renovate the fuel system at the bus garage. They plan to open public bids on Dec. 3.

"We anticipate the construction to be approximately a week long," he said.