New Lebanon School Site Plans Unveiled

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By Bill Slocum
Contributing Editor

One of the new site plans for New Lebanon School discussed by architect Tai Soo Kim at a special meeting of the New Lebanon School Building Committee.
One of the new site plans for New Lebanon School discussed by architect Tai Soo Kim at a special meeting of the New Lebanon School Building Committee.

Architects working in conjunction with the New Lebanon School Building Committee introduced a pair of new site plans in hopes one might prove the missing ingredient for updating and enlarging Byram’s public elementary school.

Options 3 and 4, as they were introduced by Tai Soo Kim and Ryszard Szczypek on Wednesday, would accommodate the educational goals of New Lebanon as a magnet school while staying within site perimeters set by the Board of Selectmen. In December, the selectmen unanimously rejected a plan that strayed from that footprint.

While both designs represent significant size upgrades from the current New Lebanon building, going from 37,000 square feet in size to 60,000 square feet, Options 3 and 4 differ significantly. Option 3 employs a multilevel floor plan with distinctive curving walls and a more compact interior design. Option 4 is more spread out, and incorporates what Kim acknowledged is an interconnected two-building effect.

“We are confident we can make both of them wonderful buildings,” Szczypek told the committee.

Operating under tight time constraints, the Building Committee plans to meet again and decide which building design to go with by next week, if not this morning, when they next meet. The goal is to have a new plan for the Board of Education to approve at their next public meeting, on Thursday, January 21.

First reactions to the plans at the Wednesday meeting seemed to favor Option 3, with its space-efficient classrooms organized in a way to better facilitate a shared-learning environment, such as what New Lebanon currently offers with its International Baccalaureate magnet program. Schools Superintendent William McKersie described Option 3 as similar to two extant public elementary schools, Glenville and Cos Cob, in its design, and “more conducive to the team building we do.”

Option 3 also drew a positive reaction from New Lebanon School Principal Barbara Riccio: “It looks like it would be a real collaborative environment,” she said.

Option 4, with its larger building footprint, would entail a higher average square foot cost, the architects said, but would also provide better ergonomic flow than does the current building, and more parking and student-traffic capacity than Option 3. “Option 4 has a bit more circulation,” Szczypek said.

Whichever design the committee goes with, they need to move quickly if they are to be ready for construction within the next 13 months. The architects assured Board of Education chair Laura Erickson that either design will accommodate that timeline.

The committee was given a new issue to consider late in their meeting when Parks and Recreation Commissioner Joseph Siciliano asked them to consider incorporating upgrades to an adjacent parkland site that has fallen into disuse, perhaps revitalizing it into a regulation soccer field.

Committee members were mixed in their responses, with some voicing support for the idea, and others saying no. Committee chair Steve Walko noted that the field is not part of the specifications the committee was given to work with, but that some consideration could be given to how a new school might be built in a way that provides options for an improved adjacent recreation field.

Committee clerk Patricia Kantorski noted the site is constrained enough now, and that creating a regulation soccer field might require a retaining wall. “It’s a very tight site,” she said. “I think it’s squeezing a little too much out of the site.”

 

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