CHS unveils updates in classrooms, gym

With a smile, and miked to a freshly installed sound system, Charlottesville High School’s orchestra director Laura Mulligan Thomas greeted school officials who entered the new orchestra rehearsal room — which had long been an abandoned woodshop.

Principal Thomas W. Taylor gave a public tour of new renovations at the high school on Thursday, attended primarily by about a dozen school officials.
The new orchestra rehearsal room and a renovated gymnasium are among several construction projects that were scheduled to be complete before classes began Wednesday.

“Knock on wood, everything has gone as planned and has been on time and under budget,” said Mike Mollica, the capital projects coordinator.
“I can’t believe this is that old woodshop,” said Ed Gillaspie, director of finance for Charlottesville schools.

As an abandoned woodshop, the space was unattractive, had concrete floors and “looked like some kind of old warehouse,” Gillaspie said, adding that if he hadn’t seen it before, he would never have guessed that the new orchestra room had once been a woodshop.
The orchestra, which grew from eight to 140 members in two decades, outgrew its old room, Mulligan Thomas said. “We were crawling over top of each other.”
The budget to renovate the high school’s fine arts rooms was $442,000, according to project manager Timothy J. Breitenbach. The final costs were about $435,000.
None of the school projects went over budget, Breitenbach said.

Charlottesville High School had a $375,000 budget to renovate its gym, but did it for $326,000. Walker Upper Elementary School and Greenbrier Elementary School underwent major roof overhauls for more than $430,000 less than the budgeted $1.2 million.
Though not a school project, the City Hall roof was also reconstructed for $465,000, though it was budgeted for $650,000, according to Breitenbach.

“I attribute the savings largely to our bid invitation timing,” Breitenbach wrote in an e-mail. “We obtained bids early in the year when a lot of contractors were trying to assure that they had work scheduled for the summer.”
Breitenbach says he doesn’t know how the school will manage the savings.

School officials have said that the renovations were overdue. The gym project, for example, included a new floor, basketball backboards and replacement of unsafe bleachers, officials said.