Phillipsburg's new high school almost ready to begin construction

Wednesday, August 05, 2009
By STEPHEN J. NOVAK
The Express-Times

PHILLIPSBURG | Phillipsburg School District officials and residents got their first look this week at what the new high school will look like.

"This is what you'll see first when you come onto the campus," Assistant Superintendent George Chando said, as renderings stood on easels at Monday's school board meeting.

"We wanted to make sure everyone was introduced to it," he continued. "We wanted to make sure everyone knew what the building was going to look like, because that -- your first impression -- means a lot."

With state money in place for the $174.4 million project, and the layout and design essentially complete, board President Paul Rummerfield said he can definitively answer residents who ask if a new school is really coming.

"We will have a new high school in Phillipsburg before long," Rummerfield said.

Superintendent Mark Miller announced a groundbreaking is scheduled for 11 a.m. Sept. 21 at the Belvidere Road site in Lopatcong Township.

Designers working on the project offered exterior renderings and brick samples at Monday's meeting.

Jeff Venezia, architect with the New Brunswick, N.J.-based Design Ideas Group, went through the design theory behind the building's appearance.

The lower floor of the three-floor building will be made up of gray blocks in a pattern combining both smooth and rough faces -- an element inspired by rock outcroppings at the site, Venezia said.

Multicolored bricks will form a band around the science wing of the school, and each of those colors will be incorporated into other areas of the roughly 330,000-square-foot building.

Much of the building will include windows that offer "incredible views" of the area, Venezia said.

"We've tried to take this very large building, work with materials that are very maintenance-friendly over the long term," he said. "We've tried to work within the budget that's been established for the building and give you what I think is a very attractive building given its size and its location."

Neil Mapp, a senior planner with the New Jersey Schools Development Authority, said final plan approvals are pending before state agencies.

The authority should be able to advertise within two weeks for bids on early site work, and construction should begin in earnest by year's end, Mapp said.

The new building is scheduled to be opened in 2013.

District officials said the facade presented Monday was not the first designed for the school but said it was the best. Old designs, Rummerfield said, were "too sterile."

"I think (this design is) a great job, and it melds better with the community than that sterile look," Rummerfield said.