Architects Present Toll Gate & Pilgrim’s New High Schools Designs

WARWICK, RI —  Construction of Toll Gate & Pilgrim’s new high schools begins March 2025 and is expected to wrap June 2027, the public learned during an information session on the $350M project held at Wednesday’s School Committee meeting at Warwick Veteran’s Middle School.

During the meeting, embedded at the top of this article and linked within, the project’s manager and architects outlined the design process and reviewed detailed schematics, artists conceptual drawings, and video walkthroughs of the current school design.

Galligan: Be wary of out-of-date information about dynamic process

Galligan said he and members of the Committee had heard several rumors and questions about out-dated information from people at sporting events and gatherings in recent months.

“This Committee has elected tonight to hold this meeting to dispute those claims, or refute those claims.”

Galligan said the information presented about the new High Schools project that night, some of which Committee members were hearing for the first time, is subject to change, “at a moment’s notice,” and people should be wary about elements or changes that are no longer a concern.

“A perfect example of this would be: I woke up this morning. Channel 10 ran a story on this evening’s meetings. And I watched it and they ran a sound bite of me speaking about some cuts that we’re making. About walking tracks being removed from the gymnasiums. Well, you’ll see, because we saw the Pilgrim gymnasium last week in the School Committee meeting, the walking track is back in. So, obviously, a soundbite from April has become irrelevant, because you’ll see tonight Pilgrim has a walking track back within that school.”

Galligan reiterated that elements of the plan presented that night may change the next day, due to issues including cost.

The project is currently in the design phase, the third of three phases in the Rhode Island Department of Education  (RIDE) process, said Chris Spiegel, the Senior Project Manager for Left Field Project Management, which is supervising the work.

“We are at the very, very beginning of stage three,” Spiegel said. That stage involves review of design development, schematic designs and construction documents. Those all need approval from RIDE’s School Building Authority, the Warwick School Committee, and the Warwick School Building Committee, he said.

A slide in his presentation noted a 100% chance that the design will change.  “It is inevitable that the design will change,” he told the audience. That’s because the process entails continual cost estimates from third parties and construction managers, requiring continual adjustments to keep the project within the budget.

Spiegel said throughout the process, educational programming spaces “most likely will  not change,” but elements such as color and location, and the addition or deletion of scope of some elements.

New High Schools Climate Control Explained

David Hipolito, Senior HVAC Project Manager with Griffith and Vary consulting engineers, said the buildings will be sixty-percent “fully air conditioned.”

“Your big spaces, your dining spaces, dining commons, auditorium, administration that’s there year-round, or things that might get year-round summer usage,” he said, such as auditoriums or other areas being used during the summers, “Those will all be fully air conditioned,” Hipolito said, meaning that during a typical 85-degree summer day, it will be 75 degrees inside and comfortable. Life skills rooms will also be air conditioned, he said.

For the general classroom areas, he said, “The design approach there is what gets termed as ‘tempered air,’ Hipolito said. Airflow to those classrooms is ‘ventilated air,’ he aid, meaning the air has been run through a de-humidifier.

“It will feel like it’s air-conditioned in there. It will feel cool,” he said, but, “What it won’t do is in August, when students aren’t there, it won’t meet 75 degrees,” he said. He said the system meets the school’s needs during the school year, when temperatures are anticipated to be more easily managed. He said they have installed the system in about 30 schools, including in East Providence. “Never an issue. They get very, very comfortable. Most teachers are very, very happy,” Hipolito said.

He noted that its the same system he designed in his home town, Somerset, MA, where his kids go to school. Spiegel added that the system is fully reimbursable by RIDE.

During public comment, Matt Hodge, a teacher at Toll Gate, expressed concern about the air conditioning system, noting that it has been pretty hot in his classroom during the beginning and toward the end of the school year. In fact, Warwick Schools closed last year on extremely hot days during the start of the School year in September.

 Project funding breakdown, contingency funding explained

Spiegel presented a breakdown of expenses, including $280 million for building construction, site work, and demolition. About $42 million is designated for “soft costs,” including architectural and engineering services, furniture, and other materials. Spiegel noted $28 million has been reserved for contingency funds, used to protect the project from cost overruns. 

Contingency funds are released back into the general project once it has safely passed the stage where things such as possible ledge found at the construction site are cleared from the list of possible risks. Contingency funds are not applicable to changing elements of the project underway, Spiegel said. For instance, mechanical and electrical elements of the design are locked in once construction has begun, even if the contingency funds  aren’t needed. Similarly, the number of classrooms can’t be increased at that stage.

Spiegel said the contingency fund protects against situations like that encountered at Rogers High School in Newport, where unsuitable soils at the site cost the project $4 million, forcing the city to either reduce the scope of the project or ask voters for more money.

“Once I get past my foundations. Once I get past my steel, I no longer have to worry about contaminated soils. I no longer have to worry about rock that I’m going to have to drill into.”

Unused contingency funding will be applied to what Spiegel called “add alternates” – about 24 budget estimated options he can add to the project using unspent contingency funds. Spiegel said contingency funds will be added back into the project during the site work phase, after the buildings are finished and moved into, after the existing buildings have been demolished. That demolition is scheduled for June to December 2027.

Project budget discussed, public comment

So far, Spiegel said, the project is on budget. Galligan disagreed.

“Using Pilgrim at 204,000 square feet at $700 approximately a square foot and Toll Gate at 210,000 square feet at approximately $700 a square foot comes out to $289.9 million,” Galligan said. 

“That’s right where we’re supposed to be at schematic design,” Spiegel said. “If you look at East Providence High School, I think they were $44 million over budget at schematic design. This is part of the process and the design continues to be more efficient,” he said. During schematic design,  he said, there’s a lot of assumptions which need to be made. As the design moves forward, those assumptions get reduced and we bring the project is moved within budget. 

Galligan also questioned if the level of air conditioning was a concern given the amount of windows in the building to allow more daylight in. Spiegel said the new windows will be better insulated than what people may be familiar with in older buildings. Answering another question from Galligan, he said considerations were being made concerning security in the event of a lockdown situation at the school.

Galligan also expressed concern about the number of students each school will be able to accommodate, given robust construction of housing in Warwick and an anticipated population increase. Spiegel said the project has permission from RIDE to build slightly over the initial projections due in part to that concern. The classrooms will be slightly more than what population projections say the schools will need in five years, he said.

The Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) has given favorable feedback about the high school designs. However, the design process will continue until March.

“Things will change,” said Galligan. “There will be ebbs and flows, additions and deletions.”

Representatives from Saam Architecture and Saccoccio and Associates presented the designs for the new high schools. Each school will accommodate up to 1150 students.

There are various entities with “jurisdiction” over the project, such as the Police and Fire departments and the Governor’s Commission on Disabilities. Spiegel explained the project managers will need to “pivot” the design based on the feedback from these agencies.

The revised schematic designs for the new Pilgrim High School met with a mixed reaction from the committee on Aug. 13.

Galligan said the design was “beautiful” but voiced some reservations about the proposed number of parking spaces at Pilgrim as well as the size of the gymnasium.

“Parking is always going to be a fight with RIDE,” Spiegel said. “They will not pay for parking.”

 Rob Cote, frequent city critic, said he was “disappointed” in the School Committee for not allowing residents to, “ask questions on the largest project that has ever been undertaken in this city.”

Many other public speakers at the meeting were concerned about the poor condition of the current sports facilities and athletic fields.

“I want this for our families,” said Nick Durand, a teacher and coach at Veterans Middle School. Durand said he was “impressed” with the designs for the new schools and stressed how vital athletic facilities are for students engaged in sports.

The meeting video can be viewed at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuSkTWJ6sSA