FAIRFIELD, Conn. Projects to renovate Riverfield School and Fairfield Warde High School and to replace an aging Fairfield bridge all moved forward Monday evening. The three plans all won approval for their next steps from the Representative Town Meeting.
The Riverfield Building Committee received $250,000 in seed money to begin work on the expansion of the Mill Plain Road elementary school this summer. The Board of Education asked the town to add five classrooms, expand the all-purpose room and improve handicap accessibility and air quality in the school.
Our current facilities no longer, even unsatisfactorily, meet the needs of our students, said Amy Crawford, former head of the Riverfield PTA.
The money approved Monday will go toward architectural designs, hazardous materials testing and other early-stage work. The $250,000 will help the building committee put together a definitive design and price tag for the entire project.
Another school repair project inched forward Monday the Fairfield Warde roof. The RTM agreed to appoint a building committee for the four-year plan to replace the high schools leaking roofs. The committee will work to get state money to cut the cost of the repairs.
The RTM also signed off on the towns plans to replace the Valley Road Bridge soon. The Department of Public Works expects to replace the 82-year-old span over Horse Tavern Brook in the Stratfield section of town. The bridge is rated poor by the state, the lowest level on its three-level rating system.
Theyre seeing evidence of the bridge moving in the wrong direction, said Public Works Director Richard White. Its just very prudent, in my opinion, that when a bridge is rated poor by the state, that we should move to replace it.
The RTMs approval means the town will start working with engineers to draw exact designs for the project and making deals to get federal funding for the repairs. Those drawings will be used to put a final cost on the project, which the town would vote on in 2013.
White estimated the replacement would cost about $1.84 million. The towns share of that is expected to be about $368,000.
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