Elementary school restoration chugging along

PINE PLAINS — It’s an old historical building that’s seen better days, but at the end of this year the Seymour Smith Elementary School building is going to look a lot younger.

That’s because the Pine Plains Central School District finalized plans this spring to begin repair work on the building, which has been held together in some particularly rough spots with scaffolding and netting for the past year.

 There has already been a lot done to the building since the construction, or rather reconstruction, work began earlier this summer. It’s a long, arduous and often tedious job, but it’s nearing the halfway point and the majority of the project is on schedule to be completed by the time school starts again in September.

Project superintendent Pete Tuczynski, who works for Bast Hatfield, the project’s general contracting firm, said that if work continues on the same schedule everything but the very front of the building will be finished.

Eight workers have been hired from a local construction group, Sucato Builders, and on any given day they can be found working on a variety of different projects. There’s a range of brick and stone on the building that’s in bad shape and the work involves everything from small patch jobs to complete replacement.

In addition to work on the building itself, the driveway in front of the building has been completely dug up and grass seed will be planted. The storm sewers behind the building will be removed and replaced and the parking lot and roads in the back of the building will be completely repaved as well, this time with a much better drainage system.

All of the old pavement will be donated to the town’s highway garage, to be ground up and used in new paving projects in the future.

“It’s a recyclable system, which is a great way to utilize the product that’s here,� Tuczynski said while walking around the building.

Although the school’s administration had mentioned the possibility of the crews working double shifts during the summer to move the work along faster, Tuczysnki said most of the work is being done during the day, and the only reason that the front probably won’t be finished in time for the start of school is because of the time it takes to order and ship the large stones that make up the facade of the building.

Some of the most tedious work includes a job that must be done by hand, which is grinding out the mortar between bricks on the building’s walls so that it can be replaced by new mortar.

“You’ve got to love what you’re doing,� Tuczynski acknowledged of some of the work. “But it’s going to look great when it’s done.�

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