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Renovation, construction at Craig, Parker is making the grade

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Photo by Al Hoch

The new Craig High School cafeteria.

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Photo by Al Hoch

A view of a new classroom wing in the back of Craig High School.

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Photo by Al Hoch

Left-Tom Tarner and Ben Filter move Craig High School gym trusses into position before they are lifted in pairs on the roof.

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Photo by Al Hoch

Andy Bobbe of Hopper Corp. out of Madison cuts a roof drain pipe for the Parker High School art room.

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Photo by Al Hoch

Parkers new gym will extend out into the old student parking lot and a retaining wall between the gym and the sports fields.

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Photo by Al Hoch

Randy Halvorson works on the Parker High School's all purpose lecture room.

JANESVILLE — Tear out the ceiling tiles, add new wiring, plumbing, heating and cooling. Paint. Patch. Lay new floors.

Install all new windows with blinds sandwiched between the thermal panes. Expand the cafeterias. Build new classroom additions and gymnasiums. Replace classroom doors. Add new or remodeled spaces for the arts, sciences, business, agriculture, computers, and culinary arts.

The to-do list is long, but it’s getting done at Craig and Parker high schools, thanks to $70.8 million in referendum-approved taxpayer support. Not to mention about 400 welders, electricians, plumbers, metal workers, carpenters, bricklayers and other workers.

A few school board members toured the construction sites Wednesday to see how it’s going.

It’s going at high speed. Each site had about 100 workers when the projects got started last year. This summer, there are about 175 at Parker and 225 at Craig, some of them on overtime.

Work will continue for another 13 months or so, but this summer’s goal is to complete parts of the projects before students return in September, officials said.

The projects are under budget and on time, said Bob Klaas, senior project manager for J.P. Cullen & Sons.

And apparently no cost overruns. District Business Director Doug Bunton said he has produced no reports on any overages, although there have been change orders to tweak the projects as they moved forward.

The projects include a bank and a store at each school, which will be there for students to use but also for business and marketing students to get real-life experience.

Parker’s remodeled cafeteria should be ready for students in September, but Parker’s kitchen won’t be. Food will be made at Franklin Middle School and shipped up the hill to Parker until about November, Bunton said.

Craig’s students will continue to eat in the J Room and outside the auditorium, as they did most of last year, until February or March 2009, Bunton said.

Wednesday, both schools looked torn apart, with wires dangling, construction debris everywhere and furniture and equipment stacked high in the gymnasiums.

The steel frames of the new, large gyms are starting to alter the skylines. Those structures should be done by the end of spring break 2009.

Work is scheduled to continue though spring and summer 2009. Among the last items to be crossed off the to-do list will be renovations of the locker-room area at Parker and Parker’s second-floor classroom renovations.

Craig’s final touches will include the music area and the remainder of the classroom renovations.

MASCOT SCULPTURES TO ADORN WALLS

The expansions of Craig and Parker high schools will include new artwork: large sculptures in brick of the Craig Cougar and Parker Viking.

The bas-relief sculptures will be part of walls near their respective gyms.

They’ll be installed well off the floor so passersby won’t brush them, said Duke Kelly, owner of Janesville Brick & Tile, which ordered the works from Ohio artist Sherrell Lynn Stingel.

J.P. Cullen & Sons and Janesville Brick & Tile are paying for the sculptures, which cost about $7,000, labor included, Kelly said.

Such sculptures often are the focus of fund-raisers, but Kelly said that’s not appropriate in this case: “I think people in this community have contributed plenty with the referendum on this particular project. ...

“We appreciate what community has done for us, so we wanted to give something to both schools.”

The sculptures are carved when the brick is still wet. Then, the bricks are numbered, disassembled and fired. JPC masons will assemble them as they build the walls, using mortar of the same color as the bricks, Kelly said.

“It’ll last as long as that wall is there,” Kelly said.

Kelly said the technique of brick relief sculpture has been around for 25 to 30 years. These are not the first with which Kelly has been involved. There’s an elk at Elkhorn High School and a Bucky Badger that is not yet installed. It is destined to adorn a sports hall of fame at UW-Madison, Kelly said.