$187 Million High School to Start in N.J.

Construction is slated to start this summer on a new $187.4 million school in New

Brunswick, N.J., that will house 2,000 students. The school is expected to open in fall 2010.

The New Brunswick High School will combine three separate schools and replace the current high school, which will be converted into a middle school. The cost of the project includes land acquisition, demolition, and soil remediation on the 26-acre site off of Route 27, as well construction of the 407,000-sq-ft building, which will spread into four three-story “education pods” that connect at a central core.

Designed by Philadelphia-based Vitetta Architects, the facility will house 33 classrooms,

10 science labs, 18 resource classrooms, eight special-education rooms, six art rooms, and three music rooms. It will also house an auditorium, gymnasium, day care center, and indoor and outdoor athletic fields.

RBA Group of Morristown, N.J., is serving as civil engineer for the project, while PMK Group of Cranford, N.J., is serving as environmental consultant. Joseph Jingoli & Son of Lawrenceville, N.J., is the general contractor for the new school. Work was slated to start this summer on the school, says Kevin McElroy, a spokesman for the New Jersey Schools Construction Corporation. The schools agency is co-managing development of the new facility with the New Brunswick Development Corporation under a demonstration project initiative authorized by the state’s Educational Facilities Construction and Financing Act.

The demonstration program aims to foster projects that allow schools to serve as community anchor through features such as gyms, playgrounds, or libraries accessible to both students and the community. The program further encourages an alignment with municipal redevelopment efforts to spur new housing and other projects.

Cooper Union Project Site Doubles as Lab

The construction of a 175,000-sq-ft, nine-story academic building for the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in Manhattan is giving design students rare exposure to architecture and engineering.

The construction and design offices are located in Cooper Union’s nearby Foundation Building, giving the 30 to 40 students in the construction observation program direct access to the project.

The $120 million project is a “unique experience for undergraduates because they are exposed to the bare bones of architecture,” says Jolene Resnick, a Cooper Union spokeswoman. The academic laboratory facility, on which construction began in early November on Third Avenue between 6th and 7th streets, will have laboratories, studios, classrooms, lounges, a public auditorium, and a gallery. It will replace more than 40% of the academic space at the school.

Thom Mayne of Morphosis in Santa Monica, Calif., the 2005 winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize, designed the new facility to qualify for gold-level Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design status. He collaborated with Gruzen Samton of New York on the design. Sciame Construction of New York is the construction manager for the project.

The students can directly interact with the team members, including keeping in contact with Sciame throughout the process, says Clark Wieman, Cooper Union’s planning project director, who acts as the liaison between students and the project team. The students also followed the demolition of the Hewitt Building – which the new academic laboratory will replace – by tracking the removal of debris from the site to a recycling area.

Cassandra Telenko, a 2007 School of Engineering graduate, says she attended lectures and even “skipped a few classes” to observe o the construction process. The program allowed her to closely study “the details of Sciame, what the design achieves, and the intricacies involved in the project.”

Mayne says the design aims to evoke Cooper Union’s uniqueness through features such as an operable building skin made of rotating, perforated stainless steel panels, which will reduce the impact of heat radiation during the summer and insulate during the winter. An opening in the metal skin reveals the interior atrium and lounges to those walking by the building, which serves as a symbol of a flexible, open, and interactive academic building, Mayne says.

“We literally designed out from that core, always keeping in mind that a building for the Cooper Union should be as strong and innovative as the institution itself,” he adds.

The facility’s other green features will include radiant heating and cooling ceiling pan- els with HVAC technology that will boost energy efficiency; a full-height atrium with a heat stack effect to improve airflow; a green roof that will harvest water to be used in toilets on the lower floors; a cogeneration plant with waste heat recovery; and a photovoltaic panel system.

The building aims to meet the university’s goal of maximizing opportunities to unify its core study programs, which include art and professional design, says George Campbell Jr., president of the school. Campbell says the building needs to be flexible to give it opportunities to evolve with the curriculum.

“Dissolving the boundaries between art, architecture and engineering is necessary because [not only] will it bring about more unity, but because many [research] breakthroughs are happening in the intersection,” he adds. 

N.J. Legislators Consider Land Use Process Amendment

An amendment to existing state land use process laws has pinned real estate developers against municipalities in a struggle for control in New Jersey.

Assembly bill number 3870 – cosponsored by State Assemblyman Jerry Green of Plainfield and four colleagues – would amend the state’s land use process laws to shield pending applications for land development from changes in municipal ordinances.

 State Sen. Ronald Rice of Newark is the primary sponsor for the Senate’s bill, S-457.

The bills were sent to the committee level in both houses, but Green says he does not know when it may advance. The amendment would change the “time of decision” rule, granting protection, or “immunity,” to any application that has been submitted for consideration to the municipal planning or zoning board.

The current rules permit “municipalities to change the rules of the zoning game to suit the purposes of the moment,” says Michael Elward, a land use attorney with Becker Meisel, a law firm in Livingston, N.J.

Elward cites a 1995 New Jersey Supreme Court case, Manalapan Realty, L.P. v. Township Committee of Manalapan, in which the developer proposed to add 500,000 sq ft of commercial and retail space to an existing facility, which the local land use ordinance allowed. But the municipality amended the ordinance to exclude the expansion, and the court later deemed the municipality’s actions legitimate. 

Passage of the new bill is “in the interest of major developers of any projects that may face public opposition,” Elward says. The amendments would not apply retroactively to pending applications, however.

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