- Kenton County Schools has approved another round of school renovations, specifically at Taylor Mill Elementary and Ryland Heights Elementary
- The Taylor Mill Elementary plans will focus largely on HVAC improvements
- The Ryland Heights plans will focus HVAC and other improvements and are slated for completion this year
The Kenton County Schools Board of Education approved another round of renovation projects in the district Monday night.
Specifically, the approvals were for construction at Taylor Mill Elementary School and Ryland Heights Elementary School, which altogether will cost the district about $29.9 million, according to district estimates.
“Primarily, what’s driving this project is our HVAC system,” said Chief Operating Officer Matt Rigg of the project at Taylor Mill. “It is aged out, and I know our costs have increased in keeping that system up and running. It’s a lot of our time from our maintenance team to keep that system operational, so this is a perfect time to go in and replace that system.”
The Taylor Mill project is very preliminary, and the Board’s approval this week only focuses on early schematic design for the renovations. Although the HVAC work will be the brunt of the construction, other proposed improvements include improvements to the bathrooms, classrooms and other parts of the building’s interior, as well as some tuck pointing improvements. The proposal also calls for a roof replacement.
Early estimates for the Taylor Mill Project put costs of construction at $15 million, not including fees, admin costs and room for contingency funding (i.e. extra money set aside in case some unexpected expense arises). Total cost projections, including all of that ancillary funding, put the project at about $18.1 million.
Rigg also informed the Board that the district would be looking at possibly replacing the concrete seating in Taylor Mill’s gym with retractable bleachers, although they hadn’t come up with any, ahem, concrete plans yet.
“I’m advocating to get rid of it,” said Superintendent Henry Webb. “Those concrete barriers… they cause a safety issue. But whether they stay or whether they go, there will definitely be some items put in place to secure some safety of those concrete bleachers.”
“With the work in the classrooms,” asked Board President Jesica Jehn, “will we be displacing any classrooms?”
“We’re still under examination of how we’ll handle that, but it does not appear that we’re going to have to displace students from the classrooms,” Rigg said. “Just the way things work out, we might luck into not needing to use the gym.”
The renovations do not call for any changes to parking or traffic circulation at Taylor Mill.
The project is slated to begin in the spring, and the district estimates the work to take between 16 and 18 months to complete.
Click here to read the design documents, produced by Emboss Design, submitted to the Board.
The Ryland Heights approvals, on the other hand, were a continuation of approvals the board made in May. The plans call for a roof replacement, HVAC upgrades, various interior renovations in the older parts of the building (which date as far back as 1960) and improvements to the building’s facade, sidewalks and signage.
District documents put the overall cost of construction, not including fees, other admin costs and contingency funding, at $9.5 million. Total cost estimates put the project at about $11.8 million.
The Ryland Heights process is much farther along, having already gone through preliminary design approvals. The district hopes to send the project out to bid this month and complete the work by the end of the year.
“This one, I do know for sure that we will not be displacing students with the additional classrooms that we added,” Rigg said.
You can read the Ryland Heights design documents, also produced by Emboss, here.