- If all continues to go smoothly, construction of the new classrooms will be completed in late December. We have scheduled movers to bring the furniture from our modular structure on Clyde Street to the new classrooms when Shalom Children’s Center is closed for winter break (December 26th – 30th). We will be ready for the PreK children to start in their new spaces on January 3rd!
- Kate, architect Dorothea Schultz, JCC Association Early Childhood Education VP Mark Horowitz, and Lael Gray, JCC Executive Director had a very productive and instructive meeting on Monday. Mark helped to identify ways to make the space more supportive of the children’s learning and to better meet the teachers’ needs. We probably won’t get everything we want due to space and financial constraints, but we will continue to prioritize through the design process to make sure that our most important needs are met.
- When the construction committee met yesterday, we reviewed our list of “must haves” and “wants” for the entire expansion project, and reviewed a new budget that is just over $8 million. Even at that amount, we will still be forced to make choices about what will be included in the project. We have been dreaming big, and we are learning that construction and renovations are expensive! We hope that as we move forward with development and approval of final designs, we may find that we can bring down some of the costs that are now included in the estimates.
- One area of our new aquatics facility that is still being designed is the baby pool/splash pad. We are looking into what our options are in order to meet ADA requirements. We also discussed plans for the new camp pavilion and other outdoor features at the Clyde Street location.
- We hoped to see preliminary designs of the early childhood wing yesterday, but Dorothea needs more time to incorporate the suggestions that were presented in the meeting with Mark Horowitz.
- we are still actively fundraising to get to our goal of $8 million. We are so close, with only $300,000 left to raise out of $4 million that we need to receive from our community. (With the matching grant that will bring our total to $8 million.) Please spread the word!
