Stewardship

The State acquired the Roebling School Site earlier this decade with the full intention of renovating the complex into a state of the art school for over 1,200 students. In 2004, things fell apart. The SCC (now SDA) ran out of money, and Roebling was one of the unlucky projects to have begun some pre-construction sitework when the money stopped flowing.

Now, I would submit that the proposed Roebling School was far from a "normal" SCC/SDA project. It represented the culmination of over 10 years of planning on the part of the School District and City Officials. As a project, it was born out of a relatively simple problem: how can you build a brand new school in an existing, densely populated neighborhood? Rather than taking a residential block of housing (probably through eminent domain), the City proposed that architecturally significant buildings be adapted into a new school. The State bought into the idea, plans were drawn, and the project won an impressive array of awards and the project even got the attention of the national media (see below for a partial list of publications and awards).

A project description with renderings from the SDA website:
2001: The project wins its first award: “Outstanding Building: Work in Progress” and is published in “American School and University Magazine”:
2001: The renovation design wins a NJ AIA Silver award
2003: The project is highlighted in a national publication on inventive school facilities:
2003: Gov. McGreevey designates the area around the School as a “Renaissance Zone”
2004: The Roebling School wins a NJ Future Smart Growth Award

As detailed on this blog and elsewhere, the State has effectively abandoned its plans to re-use the Roebling Buildings, and they now propose to level the site in order to build a cheaper, more typical, SDA school facility. Facts still have not been provided to New Jersey taxpayers proving the assertion that the adaptive re-use proposal is more expensive. But that argument is for another day...

This is where stewardship comes in. The State took this property off the Trenton tax rolls. The State effectively took a business out of our City to make way for this project. And over the past 6 years, the State has watched over this site as it deteriorates. The Mott Street Gates are loose enough for squatters to easily walk into the site (and into the buildings). The condition of the temporary fences are awful. Portions of building 62 across from De Lorenzo's (Hudson) appear as though they are in danger of collapse- specifically, the highest portions of the exposed steel structure at the Southernmost end- the portions that are leaning. 20 foot high piles of debris are visible from almost every adjacent street and home, and have been for almost 4 years. The interiors of the buildings are open to the elements and have endured freeze-thaw cycles, water penetration, rodent infestations (I saw at least 8 fat cats prowling the site), pigeon guano etc.

Beyond the neglect of the site, these buildings represent a huge part of Trenton's industrial history. The recent opening of the Roebling Machine Shop (for the fantastic Art All Night) and the grand opening of Food Bazaar at the Roebling Market demonstrate the flexibility that these industrial shells provide. Huge windows. High ceilings. Incredible light. If the State has decided, regardless of fact, that they will demolish the Roebling School site buildings, they will make the same mistakes that wiped out portions of Trenton in the 1950's and 1960's. They will ignore cultural meaning in favor of the "easiest solution" or the cheapest way to build. They will destroy part of the complex that was responsible for Trenton's great rise, and they will also destroy the potential for our children to learn, first hand, about a period in Trenton's history that was very positive. This new plan is, put simply, a horrible idea.

See below for recent images on and around the site as proof of the quality of the State's stewardship at this site. I'll end on an easy question: would the State maintain a site this poorly in Princeton?

The Fab Four

The Facilities Advisory Board (FAB) meeting was held tonight to discuss the four active Trenton projects being undertaken by the NJSDA. There was a crowd of 15 residents (+/-) plus district representatives.

The big news continues to be that the district has apparently won a $250,000,000.00 prize courtesy of NJ taxpayers. The other big news is that the SDA has put a gun to the head of our collective city.

As reported in our papers, the NJSDA has told the district that the allocated funds will not be enough for the previously developed plans for both The Roebling School and the TCHS project. They have thrown out big numbers in the past that Roebling would now cost $130,000,000 and the high school could be anywhere between $200 and $300 million. Therefore, the SDA advised the district that it needs to develop a new baseline- a new set of parameters for these schools so that it can now look at developing new-construction designs for both projects, and that apparently the High School will serve less than half of the High School student population. Added to this mix is the fact that while the State only approved the money last week, the SDA needs Trenton to submit a new program model to DOE ASAP or else we may either loose our place in the priority line or loose the funding altogether.

That puts our district in the unenviable role of rushing a decision that will ultimately affect our students for at least the next 30 years. To their credit, I think the district is trying to do the right thing, and that the SDA has put them in a politically impossible position whereby they will face criticism no matter what decision is made. After all, if they go through a lengthy public-input process, or engage in additional analysis, then the district runs the risk of losing the funding and the projects. That’s a possibility the district cannot face, and it was clear in the meeting that the district has decided to push for all-new buildings at both Roebling and TCHS, and that, conversely, the existing Roebling and TCHS buildings will eventually be demolished. The Board of Education will vote on the 28th to begin this process- and I doubt that any public outcry will sway the board.

My main concern is the following: we are about to throw away the $30 million invested in Roebling and TCHS because the SDA has said that the old plans are too expensive to build. The pressure is on to make a decision, but the State has also not publicly provided the back-up information that proves their assertion that a comparable new facility is cheaper than an adaptive re-use of the existing facility. When we start over with a clean slate, we also start the approvals process all over again (new consultant contracts and negotiations, DOE approvals, SDA review and approvals, Construction Managers’ input and approvals, local municipal oversight and approvals, code review, DEP review etc.). The SDA schedule has a BEST CASE scenario whereby the High School and Roebling both have documents ready to bid on in 2 years- and that is an aggressive schedule since we will effectively start over from scratch. Meanwhile, the clock is ticking. Construction prices continue to rise at RECORD levels, inflation continues, and our two big projects are still on paper for at least two years. We all run the risk that by the time Roebling and TCHS go out to bid, both reincarnated schools are just as off-budget as they are today! It’s a realistic projection, and is consistent with what I’ve seen in private practice.

Furthermore, we are being led down a path without any facts, without any numbers or detailed explanation from the SDA on how these two huge projects have exceeded industry-standard escalation and have effectively more than doubled in price within a four year period. I find it curious that detailed facts and figures on these schools are absent from discussions that have gone on for over 8 months now- that no bona-fide construction cost estimates have been presented to the public detailing how much more or less expensive each option is in 2009-10 dollars (or midpoint of construction). Consultant Architects and Construction Managers have NEVER said in public what their recommendations are for the best or cheapest facility. Likewise, the scope of both Roebling and the TCHS projects are so vast that its surprising that value-engineering was not considered or was not made public. Did the State try to cut some “fat” off these projects, or are they so unwieldy that the analysis would take too long now? With all of these facts noticeably absent from the decision-making process, how can we possibly look Mr. and Mrs. New Jersey in the eye and tell them that we are spending money wisely and making the best decisions? Is it really ok to throw away $30 million in preconstruction expenses because there is, maybe, a cost benefit analysis somewhere, out there, maybe? Can you possibly expect the public to buy in to that and continue to support SDA projects into the future? And the most important consideration of all is that by starting over, we are delaying the delivery of these facilities to the people who need them the most: our students.

Without the estimates, without cold hard facts, its impossible to judge whether one alternative is better than the other. We are all just talking about opinions, gut reactions, and guesstimates- and when $250,000,000 is at stake, that level of discussion seems utterly irresponsible.

Trenton SDA projects to get funding.

Quasi good news today. The School Development Authority has made public its implementation schedule for the next round of funding. Trenton gets three schools out of it: Trenton Central High School, the Roebling School, and an Early Childhood Center. In total estimated cost, the city is looking at around $250,000,000 in facilities improvements. That should be great news for the city.

Unfortunately, the same document also indicates that both Roebling and the High School will need additional DOE approvals (only three school on the 53 project list need these additional approvals) and will have an estimated construction start date of Summer 2010, roughly two years from now. My guesstimate is that the schools could be occupied by the Fall of 2012 at the earliest, given the scale of the projects. On top of that, these schools are 36th and 39th in line on a list of 53 total Projects.

To its credit, the SDA has made clear that additional stashes of money will be reserved for unforseen issues, price escalation etc. to the tune of $300,000,000 or 10% of the allocated budget. It is, of course, impossible to predict what is going to happen to construction prices in the next 5-6 years. The free market is the only sure fire way of determining the actual price of a project- especially in today's rapidly escalating construction market. Last week, a builder informed me that steel prices rose 15% in a single day. Likewise, oil based materials such as asphalt and some types of roofing and insulation are skyrocketing, just like our gas prices. Hopefully things calm down, but if they don't, there is a chance that the reserve amount will not be enough to cover the costs of this escalation. If that happens, there is another chance that history will repeat itself and Trentonians will again be asking "who took our money?"

What does this mean? Please attend our city's Facility Advisory Board meetings, learn more about these incredibly large, important projects. And I would advise everyone involved to try to push hard to make sure these projects happen sooner rather than later- if only to make sure the State has committed funds for Trenton's 3,000 High School students. We should also try to make sure that regardless of the project, the facilities will be assets to the city as a whole, that the schools will be not just be adequate, but that they will be great places to learn and spend the better part of one's youth in. As tax-paying residents, it is our right to reasonably push the envelope and try to make sure that these enormous expenditures go to a great cause that will benefit the city for generations to come...