By Shelby Stewart-Soldan
ssoldan@mihomepaper.com
Brandon Twp. — During the Monday night meeting, Brian Smilnak, project architect for the Brandon Schools bond, provided a summer 2024 timeline to the board of education.
The big projects outlined for the summer include exterior door replacement, middle school flooring replacement, pool construction, the high school auditorium lights and sound systems, the Harvey-Swanson Elementary parking lot, Goodman Drive, and Oakwood Elementary playground equipment replacement.
Some of the work has already begun.
“We were able to get a jump on summer construction as spring break hit,” said Smilnak. “We were able to do a lot of the door replacements on the outside.”
The other project that has already begun is construction on the pool at the high school. By the end of July, there will be a metal roof replacement, painting of the roof deck, new duct work installed, a new dehumidification unit, and a new scoreboard.
The auditorium project will also be underway in June, and it will take three weeks.
“The auditorium lights, speakers and sound panel, everything finally came in,” said Smilnak. “It’s finally here so they scheduled the work to start after June 24.”
Included in those three weeks is one week of training for staff. The project was pushed to the summer so it didn’t interfere with the spring musical.
The Harvey-Swanson parking lot reconstruction has already gone with preliminary planning for the lighting removal.
“We finally made contact with human beings at Detroit Edison,” he said. “The people that take the light poles out in the center of the parking lot are different than the people that have to disconnect the tennis court lighting from the transformer, so we found that out but we are on their schedule.”
The lighting should be removed prior to June 1, and work will begin for the reconstruction following the end of school to be completed by the end of July.
The reconstruction will add a separate bus loop and extra parking spaces for safety and efficiency. Goodman Drive, the road between the high school and the middle school, will also be redone.
At Oakwood Elementary, the new playground equipment has arrived and Smilnak is finalizing a schedule with the contractor. The current swing set will be removed and replaced, as well as the large play structure.
All of the projects are on track to be done by the end of July, and well before school starts back up in the fall.