Looking to fast-track building of schools
Streamlined process would boost job rolls

Wednesday, December 03, 2008
BY DUNSTAN McNICHOL
Star-Ledger Staff

Hoping to blunt the effects of the national recession, the leaders of New Jersey's $12.5 billion school construction program yesterday announced plans for a streamlined building process that would step up the pace of construction of at least six new schools next year.

The list of projects under consideration for the accelerated process is dominated by the proposed Phillipsburg High School, a $174.4 million project that has been delayed for years by a lack of state funding.
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Gov. Jon Corzine is looking to the schools program as one source of construction work to generate New Jersey jobs during the recession.

"The governor has laid out a very clear mandate he wants to expedite the projects as much as possible," said Kris Kolluri during his first meeting as chief executive officer of the state Schools Development Authority. "But we can do that only if we don't loosen the controls put in place."

Kolluri, the former Department of Transportation commissioner, expects to soon present the authority's board with a proposal to build six or seven schools using a truncated "design/build" process. The strategy would speed construction by combining the architecture and contracting work on each job, eliminating the need to seek new construction bids after an architect has wrapped up design work.

Kolluri's staff identified Phillipsburg High and five other projects, with a total projected cost of $393 million, that would be under construction by the end of next year if the new process is approved. Construction would begin at Phillipsburg next August under the new proposal, Kolluri said.

Besides Phillipsburg, the staff has proposed speeding up development of an early childhood center and elementary school in Jersey City, a middle school in Gloucester, the James Madison Elementary School in Garfield and the Lorraine Place Elementary School in Keansburg.

Separately, the authority has advanced the proposed construction schedule for at least two other schools -- the Connors Elementary School in Hoboken and the Academic Magnet High School in Elizabeth -- to meet Corzine's directive to get school construction under way as fast as possible.

Including the six schools in the new streamlined program, the authority hopes to move at least 21 school projects to the construction stage by the end of next year, according to information considered by the board.

Authority officials also are considering scrapping plans to renovate Newark's Westside High School in favor of a plan to build a new high school on the same site instead, according to a proposal submitted to the board.

Work is scheduled to begin on the $142 million high school on South Orange Avenue in 2011. But information presented to the board yesterday show the broad renovation project originally under consideration is "likely" to be replaced by a new school building project.

Kolluri and authority board members emphasized they will not sacrifice oversight in the name of speed as they work to advance the school construction schedule.

Four years ago, the school building program collapsed in a tangle of waste and poor management after state officials insisted on pushing hundreds of projects forward. The burst of activity resulted in situations where the state spent millions designing schools without the funds to build them and demolishing entire neighborhoods to make way for school projects that have never left the drawing board.

Dunstan McNichol may be reached at (609) 989-0341 or dmcnichol@starledger.com.
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