The Kingston City School District’s Board of Education earlier this month unanimously approved spending $1.5 million to install air-conditioning in the main building at Kingston High School, extending the nearly completed KHS Second Century project into next summer.
According to Armand Quadrini, managing principal of KSQ Design, the air-conditioning project would allow the three academic floors of the main building to be cooled as other areas of KHS are.
“There are four buildings that comprise KHS: The (Kate Walton) Field House, the renovated Salzmann, the new academic wings, and Main,” said Quadrini during a meeting of the Board of Education held on Wednesday, November 3. “We’ve air-conditioned the field house proper, the fitness center, all the academic spaces in Salzmann, and then a sprinkling of spaces at Main had already been air conditioned…This plan contemplates adding cooling coils to existing unit ventilators within instruction spaces in Main.”
The roof-mounted air-conditioning system would be a variable refrigerant flow style heat pump system and use existing and recently installed ventilation to cool 40 rooms and instructional spaces on all three of the main building’s floors.
“The engineers are pretty confident we can utilize existing shafts to get our piping from the classrooms up to the roof,” Quadrini said. “It should be a fairly straightforward project.”
Work on the project is planned for next summer, but Quadrini said that a logjam at the New York State Education Department could slow down the approvals process.
“I think it’s important that we caution that we’re going to try to work really hard to install in the summer of 2022,” Quadrini said. “We are getting technical reviews done in four weeks, but there’s a bottleneck because there’s only two SED project managers that are processing the permits.”
The $137.5 million Second Century referendum passed in December 2013 by a narrow margin of 2,265-2,082. Work performed during the project included the razing of the Myron J. Michael and Tobin-Whiston buildings, the addition of two new wings, extensive renovations of the original high school building, and upgrades to Kate Walton Field House. Even with the inclusion of the air-conditioning installation, the project still came in at around $14.5 million under budget.
Recently completed Phase 2 work of the KHS Second Century Project includes a restored and updated lobby area, with a terrazzo logo; landscaping along Broadway, new windowsills installed in campus bridges, and a stamped concrete memorial in the location of the former Whiston-Tobin building that includes the passage “Manual Training Building.”
Installation of the Kingston Tigers’ logo in terrazzo on the floor of the restored lobby is also complete, as are the installation of acoustic panels in the music wing.
Broadway landscaping work included new bushes shaped to spell “KHS,” which Superintendent Paul Padalino said last month was a necessary replacement project.
“I know there was a lot of concern that the bushes were gone, but the other ones were well past their expected life,” he said.
