During the COVID-19 crisis, the Penn Manor School Board deemed the $86M Penn Manor High School Project critical and after a brief shut down by the Governor, resumed construction operations in early April. The District determined that continuation of the High School project was critical to District operations and finances, and that construction should continue in a manner consistent with COVID-19 health and safety requirements. There was a coordinated effort between the District, Warfel Construction (Owners representative), Howard Kelin, Esq., the District solicitor, the construction Prime Contractors Lobar, Inc., Myco Mechanical, Boro Electric, J R Reynolds, SA Comunale, Pagoda Electric and Crabtree Rohrbaugh & Associates as to what the return to construction actually meant. The discussion of “measurable progress” was used as work crews were slow to return to full strength as they adjusted to CDC guidelines and State mandates.
In the month of April, several plans to return the project to original schedule were discussed with all parties and the Board, who decided that maintaining the original schedule was important. Today, crews are accelerating their work to meet the schedule by enclosing the math and science wing as well as auditorium and music suite.
As you can see in the aerial image, the close proximity of construction to the existing school has been a consideration since early design planning. Crews have carefully re-routed existing utilities and some pedestrian walkways to maintain existing building usage and access. Several internal programs such as administrative offices, nurse and library have been relocated to temporary homes during Phase 1 work. This summer, all classrooms are changing locations as the remainder of the original building including auditorium and secondary (West) gym are demolished. The benefit of the phasing plan is that the majority of teaching spaces move once into the new building and at most twice during the construction process.
Phase 2 begins this summer and will conclude next summer with completion of the remainder of the academic classrooms, the Media Center, the Art Suite and the new Administrative offices. Phase 3 includes cafeteria and kitchen upgrades, renovations of the main gymnasium and an entirely new auxiliary gymnasium, weight room and locker room suite in the summer of 2022.
Follow the following links for construction news as well as the construction camera for live feed of activities.
https://construction.pennmanor.net/
https://construction.pennmanor.net/construction-camera/
