Roughly a year since work began, the new Mount Nittany Elementary School and the overhauled Ferguson Township Elementary School are rapidly nearing completion.
Both are on track — on schedule — to open right on time, for the start of the 2011-’12 school year, State College school-district officials said this week.
The Mount Nittany school, adjacent to the Mount Nittany Middle School, off Brandywine Drive near Boalsburg, is essentially done. It just needs some interior finishing touches, said Ed Poprik, the district director of physical plant.
At 59,946 square feet, the Mount Nittany school will house kindergarten through fifth-grade students who otherwise would have attended the Panorama Village and Boalsburg elementary schools. (The Boalsburg building has been sold off and will soon become Saint Joseph’s Catholic Academy; the aging Panorama Village building may become the school district’s new administrative hub.)
Like the rebuilt Ferguson Township school, which counts 64,500 square feet, the Mount Nittany Elementary building features 18 classrooms and two wings. Each new building is expected to house between 400 and 500 students; each has cost the district just more than $16.5 million to design, build and furnish.
Poprik and Mike Spicer, a supervisor in the district physical-plant office, gave StateCollege.com insights this week into both facilities.
They share a number of similar design cues and an emphasis on environmentally friendly features, such as geothermal heat and air-conditioning; extensive windows; and ample daylight, meant to ease the need for electric lighting.
Other environmentally driven features include rain gardens; low-use water fixtures; room-occupancy sensors, to turn off unneeded lights; and electronic displays — one in each school — to help students see and analyze how much energy the buildings are using at any given time.
Poprik said the district anticipates that both buildings will be able to achieve LEED certification.
The photo gallery to the right features both interior and exterior photos taken this week at Mount Nittany Elementary School. (Click on the image to open the gallery.) On Friday, StateCollege.com will post a similar news item and photo gallery, that one featuring the rebuilt Ferguson Township Elementary.
StateCollege.com extends sincere thanks to both Poprik and Spicer, who took considerable time in explaining the new facilities. The official school-district website also has some pages devoted to the elementary-school projects.
Related content
