Summer work on AC, more will close gym for upgrade

The Lake Roosevelt High School gym will likely be closed during the summer to upgrade its heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system.

The new HVAC system will be installed on the roof, keeping the noise from the system out of the gym, and granting easy access to the system.

The board and superintendent of the Grand Coulee Dam School District discussed the upcoming project and others at their Feb. 25 meeting.

The projects will be paid for with about a million dollars from the district’s Capital Projects Levy, which will bring in roughly half a million dollars a year for the next four years.

With about half of that money slated for other things, the district approved to present McKinstry Services, a ““design, build, operate and maintain” contract with a budget of $1.062 million to see how many of the projects they want to get done, and can get done.

The board and Superintendent Paul Turner discussed their priorities for capital projects, with updating the gym being at the top of the list because of its high amount of use for sports and other events, as well as updating the electrical system in the ““Career Technical Education”” building, the remaining part of the former high school, which is attached to the gym.

Other projects discussed included updating the HVAC in the “administrative” area of the CTE building and updating the HVAC in the basement part of the CTE.

The gym HVAC project is anticipated to be completed during the summer before the start of the 2019-20 school year.

The construction will prevent anyone from using the gym during the summer, which can affect any summer basketball programs from practicing there. People who need a gym during the summer could potentially use the elementary school gym, or the former middle school gym, Turner said.

“That gym is a big sore subject,” Turner said. “It’s never hot enough, or cold enough, it’s noisy,; there’s so many things that need to be done with it.”