Lockport Central campus construction to be completed by Labor Day

Lockport — Lockport Township High School District 205 issued an update on Central Campus’ construction progress Tuesday, announcing that the building will be ready to open for the scheduled start of school.

In a video statement released by the district, Superintendent Robert McBride said construction is “on track” for the building to open for the first day of school Monday, Aug. 19.

Had construction delays prevented the building from being ready by that date, the start of school would have been postponed for both of District 205′s buildings to keep students on a synchronized schedule.

McBride said the majority of the building will be completed by the deadline, although some portions will not be finished until after Labor Day.

According to the statement, students will not be present in the final construction areas while the work is going on, and the continued construction will not prevent the building from opening on time.

The final construction areas include a few classrooms and “some gym areas” that were discovered in need of additional carpentry and masonry work during the final inspections of the building, according to the district.

The District 205 board decided to address those matters while the building already was undergoing construction to ensure structural stability and take advantage of the existing work zone.

As of Monday, the first-floor reconstruction is 100% complete, and the space is ready for occupancy, McBride said, while the second floor has power and is in the process of the final ceiling installations.

The second floor is expected to be ready for occupation by the end of July. As final replacements to the drop ceiling are made on the second floor, McBride said the third floor is finishing its construction phase, with “modern, durable, fire-barrier drywall” being installed to replace the old plaster ceilings that collapsed.

All the “heavy, legacy plaster” ceilings, as McBride described them, have been removed from 29 classrooms and three hallways since the ceiling in classroom 310 collapsed Nov. 1. This work was completed after an inspection of all of the school’s 379 ceilings, eliminating any risk of another collapse. Central Campus is 114 years old.

“It’s exciting to see this project come to fruition,” McBride said. “It’s exciting to think again that students will be walking in these hallways. It’s exciting for me to think about us getting the chance to clean this building because it’s got all the dirt and dust of a construction project, and it’s exciting that we have committed to handling the most urgent, the most pressing and the most safety-oriented aspects of the building that makes it ready for Porters to come back and start school on Aug. 19.”