LOWELL — Work on the Lowell High School rebuild and renovation project will really ramp up during the school district’s holiday break, when students and staff are not in the building, Suffolk Construction Senior Project Manager Pannha San Chung said during the meeting of the School Building Committee.
“We had over 2,000 punch list items, and approximately 128 items remain open,” she told the members Dec. 19. “Our big push is next week with the school break, and we’re going to try and get as many of those items closed out.”
The four-phased, almost $400 million rebuilding/renovation project was approved in 2016 and broke ground in 2020. Phases 1 and 2 consisted of new construction, including the opening of the new Riddick Athletic Center, the five-story Freshman Academy and the main lobby/entrance off Father Morissette Boulevard.
“The only remaining items left would be any spring plantings, the ornamental fence and things like that that would happen in the springtime,” San Chung said.
The ornamental fence at Arcand Drive will close off the interior quad space bounded by the Phase 1 and 2 buildings.
The completed punch list will represent the end of Phase 2, and the meeting at City Hall focused on the Phase 3 construction update, including the status of the gut renovation of both the 1980 and 1922 buildings.
In an earlier interview, Skanska Project Manager Jim Dowd said that the 1980s building was already stripped out with drywall going in starting this week.
However, the Cyrus Irish Auditorium across the Merrimack Canal on Kirk Street continues to pose significant challenges due to materials used in its construction more than 100 years ago, as well as incomplete and inaccurate renderings from the time.
“The information on the drawing was not equal to what was built,” said Perkins Eastman Project Manager Robin Greenberg.
The architect firm found discrepancies in the construction of the two- to three-foot deep yellow brick wall surrounding the auditorium, that required selected removal and modifications.
Additionally, Suffolk Construction took down ceilings and opened up walls during a pre-construction evaluation for the risk of asbestos contamination back in 2019, but asbestos-containing materials were found in “unique” places during the 2024 demolition such as the sound panels in the ceilings of the mechanical rooms and the acoustic sound panels in the auditorium.
Asbestos is a mineral fiber that occurs in rock and soil. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency website, because of its fiber strength and heat resistance, asbestos has been used in a wide range of building materials such as roofing shingles, ceiling and floor tiles, cement products, insulation and as wrapping material around pipes.
Certain uses of asbestos were banned in the 1970s, and Massachusetts has strict regulatory requirements to protect schoolchildren and school employees from asbestos exposure.
The unanticipated masonry work, along with the unforeseen asbestos remediation, resulted in a significant number of change orders to the project.
“Construction contingency is our biggest focus,” Dowd said. “We started with $21.2 million. We have had 29 change orders to date totaling $10.9 million. That leaves $10.2 million remaining. Of that, we have $4.7 million in changes forecasted on the books… that leaves us with approximately $5.5 million left in contingency.”
A construction contingency is money set aside to pay for change orders from new requests or unforeseen construction requirements. The $21.2 million was built into the overall budget figures and remaining funds will be reserved for the Phase 4 gut renovation of the 1893 Coburn Hall that will commence next summer.
“We’re probably going to use a good amount of the contingency,” Dowd said. “I would say that any of the ‘nice to haves’ at the end of the project… that’s probably not going to happen.”
Wonky bleachers in the new Riddick Athletic Center continued to concern committee members, which Dowd said was being addressed.
“The limit switches were not correctly installed and we’re getting someone out to fix those and to add limit switches,” he said.
Lowell Schools Deputy Facilities Director John Leahy questioned the quality of the Sherwin Williams paint being used on the project’s interior spaces. The former city councilor owned and operated Leahy Painting for more than 25 years. He said the newly painted walls were already “getting beat up.”
“Maybe use a semi-gloss finish to keep the walls cleaner,” Leahy said. “A better quality so it holds up over the years.”
Greenberg said “We’ll look into that.”
The construction and design team said that except for the auditorium, Phase 3 is on track to turn over classroom space at the end of the school year. The auditorium will be turned over after the school year starts.
Phase 4 construction on the south end of the 1922 building and the 1893 Coburn Hall will start in June 2025. The campus-wide project is expected to wrap up in August 2026.