Page 20 - BusinessWest January 6, 2025

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well as conversion of some of the existing high school into an early-
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childhood center.
The building will also use geothermal wells for heating and cool-
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ing, said Fontaine, adding that the technology is becoming more common, but still fairly rare in school buildings. It will also have sloping metal roofs, which are more durable than flat roofs and will have a longer lifespan, he said, adding that they provide an intrigu- ing architectural element.
Johnson said ground should be broken this spring, with work on phase 1 to be completed by the end of 2026, phase 2 by the fall of 2028, and phase 3 in 2029.
Fontaine will be building the new Agawam High School at the same time it constructs a new high school in East Longmeadow, a project roughly six months further along. That will be challenging in some ways, but the company traditionally has at least two large- scale school projects occurring simultaneously.
Meanwhile, another intriguing project, this one now well under- way, is the conversion of the former HUB Insurance building (before that, it was the Oaks banquet facility) into the new police headquarters.
It’s unique, said Carl Mercieri, executive vice president with Marois Construction, the contractor handling the project, because most new public-safety facilities are built from the ground up.
Because the town was able to acquire the property at an attrac- tive price, converting it for this use emerged as the most common- sense option, he went on, adding that transforming a large (36,000 square feet) office building into a public-safety facility has required complete interior gutting and creation of a wide range of new spac- es, from offices to a dispatch room to six holding cells. Meanwhile, a large sallyport had to be added to the rear of the building.
“There are several different areas to create — a detective area,
a sergeant’s area, a patrolman’s area, an armory, and the holding cells,” said Mercieri, adding that the completion date for the project, like the final price tag (around $9 million), is a moving target, but work is expected to be wrapped up by late spring.
Forward Progress
Between the new high-school project (the town’s share of that initiative is roughly $120 million) and the new public-safety com- plex, the town will have little to spend on other large-scale capital projects for some time, said Johnson, adding quickly that this can’t stop the community from planning.
And he summed up what’s next on the proverbial to-do list with a single word: ‘infrastructure.’
“Whether it be aging roadways or storm-drainage issues, most of our infrastructure dates back 50, 60, 70-plus years,” he explained. “But we need to come up with a plan, and then match a funding mechanism to a plan to be able to move forward so that we’re not faced with dealing with crisis situations.”
Coming up with these plans — while also building the new school — will be the next challenges for Johnson in what can be called a second tour of duty in the corner office.
Or corner offices, to be more precise.
He’s put things back the way they were before in that suite, but for other, much larger issues, there is no going back — just moving forward. In the larger scheme of things, that is the plan. BW
“Whether it be aging roadways or storm-drainage issues, most of our infrastructure dates back 50, 60, 70-plus years.”
Mayor Chris Johnson says resolution of the high-school issue was one of the prime motivators for his return to the corner office.
Staff Photo
replacement.
Johnson has long been a strong advocate of the latter, and efforts
to inform the public of the available options dominated his first sev- eral months back in the mayor’s office.
“I can’t even count how many presentations I made,” he said. “I pretty much said, ‘anytime, anywhere that anyone wants one, I’ll go’ — and I did a lot of them, while also putting together educational videos to put on the town’s website and social media. My goal was to make sure people had the information they needed to make an educated decision.”
Dave Fontaine Jr., CEO of Springfield-based Fontaine Bros., the
general contractor awarded the project, said it is unique in that
it has three phases — new construction of a ‘community wing’ on
fields adjacent to the current high school; an academic wing, which
will involve demolition of much of the existing high school (some
will be saved) and new construction; and additional demolition as
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