MOUNDSVILLE - An eight-page schedule and 450 tasks are all that remain before the new Cameron High and Middle School complex reaches its completion date of Dec. 18.
The date was set during Tuesday's Marshall County Board of Education meeting. Rick Milhoan of Project and Construction Services, the project manager, said prior to last week's six-hour meeting with all trade unions and companies involved in the construction, there were several concerns to be addressed. Mainly, he said individual trade representatives could not agree on a realistic completion date and believed they were not being heard.
During the meeting, Milhoan said each union outlined what work remained to be completed by their particular crews and gave a timeline for completion. Those dates were taken and combined with a timeline created by a third-party representative who was unfamiliar with the project and was only given the data to determine a schedule.
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Photo by J.W. Johnson Jr.
Marshall County Board of Education President Roger Lewicki listens to a Cameron High School update Tuesday.
"This isn't a magic formula," Milhoan said. "This is what the contractors feel will be the duration for their pieces of work."
Milhoan said the schedule is one of the most complex he has seen with any project, laying out day-by-day tasks and completion dates. He said the last portion of the project, the gymnasiums, will be basically done by Dec. 18, with students tentatively moving into the school after the new year.
Although several issues have caused the delay, Milhoan said misinformation on the chilled-beam HVAC system caused the biggest hurdle. He said a representative from the HVAC company had said the system would be ready soon. However, two weeks later, that person was fired and a senior-level official with the company visited the site before determining the air conditioning could not be turned on until September.
"The system has to run for one week, then the wood for the gym floor needs to be acclimated to the building for 21 days," Milhoan said. "Then it will take six-to-eight weeks to lay the floor, so we're looking at December."
In the meantime, Milhoan said progress reports will be issued every two weeks to ensure crews are working on or ahead of schedule. He added that once carpet and flooring are installed, furniture can be moved in to ensure the building is ready on time. Despite the many changes and delays, Milhoan said the unions and companies have adapted well.
Board of Education President Roger Lewicki and Superintendent Fred Renzella said they hoped the schedule and updates keeps workers on task to the point the project may finish ahead of schedule.
"A date like this is a plan, and with all plans you never expect it to go over," Renzella said. "This is as close as we can get."
Site preparation for the project began in 2009.
