The State College Area School Board on Monday heard additional details, a preliminary cost estimate and timeline for the planned expansion of Mount Nittany Elementary School.
Including a 38,575-square-foot addition and renovations to 2,000 square feet of the existing building, the project is currently expected to total $20.93 million.
That figure includes site work, construction, furniture and equipment, soft costs, anticipated cost escalation factors over the design and construction periods and financing fees, Jeff Straub, of project architect Crabtree Rohrbaugh and Associates, told the board.
“The economy has changed substantially over the last few years and we’re trying to be cognizant of that,” Straub said.
When the project was introduced last year, the “very high-level” cost estimate was pegged at about $15 million, though administrators cautioned a budget would not take shape until plans developed.
Construction is expected to begin in November and be completed in the spring of 2026. Bidding is tentatively scheduled for September.
Primarily intended to alleviate capacity issues at the elementary school in College Township, the expansion and renovation will add six classrooms, special education rooms, a large group instruction room, music room and a dedicated cafeteria. The large new cafeteria will be close the new entrance, which will be located near the new lot, making it “a great space” for after-hours activities, a CRA’s John Beddia told the board in January.
Planned work also will include a bus drop-off loop and parking lot accessible from the existing parking area shared with Mount Nittany Middle School, a new entrance and playing fields on the east side of the building.
Beddia previously told the board that the focus of the design is “to ensure that we’re maintaining the continuity of the architecture,” with the existing building.
A goal for the new building is to receive Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) gold certification under current standards, Straub said on Monday. The existing Mount Nittany Elementary was LEED certified about a decade ago.
A resolution passed by the school board in 2008 directs new construction to meet LEED silver certification or higher.
Planning for the expansion and renovation project has moved from the schematic design phase to design development, which will incorporate mechanical, electrical, plumbing, structural engineers, food service and interior design teams, Straub said.
An interior design focus group involving faculty and staff is scheduled for this week.
This school year is the third in a row that the 450-student-capacity Mount Nittany Elementary’s 18 classrooms are at full use, necessitating two fifth-grade classrooms to be located in the nearby Panorama Village Administrative Center.
Capacity challenges at the school are not expected to diminish without adding space.
Mount Nittany is the only of the district’s eight elementary schools identified as having immediate capacity concerns that need to be addressed, based on an analysis of enrollment trends and projections over 10 years conducted by CRA, with additional projections provided by school enrollment analytics firm DecisionInsite.
The school board voted in August to authorize design for an addition and appoint CRA as architecture consultant.
