In the midst of the wonders of the Holiday Season, RESET Air is proud to announce the latest building to achieve RESET Air Certification for Interiors; the East Liberty Presbyterian Church (ELPC) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A joint effort between ELPC, Auros Group, Pfaffmann+ Associates and CJL Engineering, the 83-year old cathedral is a standout in indoor air achievement and energy conservation.
With such noteworthy accolades going above and beyond baseline building standards, RESET asked the ELPC project team to elaborate on their efforts as a gift to the greater community. What they had to say was nothing short of inspiring!
Tell the RESET Air community about the importance of ELPC as a beacon to the community, Pittsburgh, etc.
Known in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as the Cathedral of Hope,East Liberty Presbyterian Church (ELPC)serves as a central hub in the community—a place for people of all beliefs and walks of life to gather, worship, celebrate, hold meetings and events or simply find a moment of peace. The church is home to over 800 regular members and hosts over 15,000 visitors per year. Built in 1935, ELPC seeks to provide the community its special brand of “radical hospitality”.
“Church congregations often think about energy efficiency and environmental justice in broad terms: Will this improvement reduce my electricity bill? Will these renovations be an asset for my children’s generation and the world in which they live? Choosing to be guided by important, measurable standards such as the RESET air quality measurements gave us ways to both answer the easy questions and the in-depth follow-up questions. It allows us to say with full integrity that we are doing our best to provide a physical facility that is safe, environmentally sound, and thoroughly welcoming to the members, guests, and employees who regularly gather within our walls.”
Rev. Dr. Randy Bush, Senior Pastor – ELPC
Why was it important to ELPC to attack difficult goals for an old cathedral… lower energy, high indoor air quality?
Through the first-ever comprehensive renovation, ELPC sought to increase the usable space in the church, reduce energy consumption by 25% and significantly improve indoor air quality in order to fulfil its mission of good stewardship and inclusive hospitality.
According to Stefani Danes, Adjunct Professor of Architecture at Carnegie Mellon University and Building Committee Co-chair: “Our exceptional team of ELPC, Pfaffmann + Associates, CJL Engineering and AUROS Group, brainstormed a variety of feasible solutions to achieve the desired performance within our construction budget. Over time, the church has struggled with temperature and humidity. RESET Air was not only a good IAQ standard but it provided us the tools to ensure we are actually delivering high quality indoor air for our membership and our guests from all over the world.”
“A passive-first approach to the project created the perfect foundation to consider RESET Air certification. By spending time assessing and understanding the condition of the envelope, we were in a much better spot to deliver high indoor air quality. Even a cathedral built in 1935 can achieve healthy indoor air quality ensuring everyone lives, works, worships and plays in an environment that supports health and performance,” says Craig Stevenson, President, AUROS Group.
Beith Eckenrode, Principal, AUROS Group, added, “What’s special about ELPC’s RESET Air certification is that it’s the perfect learning laboratory for organizations across our region. Pittsburgh is fortunate to have aspirational sustainability leadership across government, universities, foundations, industries and non-profits. The smart leaders in our region expect to see evidence of performance, not just claims or words. RESET Air provides the rigor of continuous monitoring to cause even the biggest skeptics to believe.”
The Holidays are a time for believing. On behalf of all of us at RESET, we’d like to give a sincere thanks to the ELPC project team for believing in RESET Air.
Comments Off on Mars Area School Board hires CJL for MEP Design for Middle School
Reprinted from the Post-Gazette – November 6, 2018 12:34 PM
By Sandy Trozzo
The Mars Area school board on Tuesday reviewed a proposed change to renovations of the middle
school and proposals from firms that would design the renovations.
The board got from Eckles for $286,905 for architectural services; CJL Engineering for $289,500
for mechanical, electrical and plumbing engineering; and McFarland Kistler for $14,400 to design the
food services area.
An architect usually does all three services, but Jon Thomas of Thomas & Williamson, construction
managers for the project, said this “alternative contract” approach makes more sense.
Eckles and CJL will each design 49 percent of the project, with McFarland Kistler picking up the
remaining 2 percent.
The board also reviewed improvements for the project. They include widening the corridors, new
lockers and relocating the nurse, art room, family and consumer science, robotics and other classrooms.
The additional work is estimated at $2.2 million, bringing the project’s total estimate to $12.4 million.
Mars Area is using district funds for the renovation. The board previously scrapped plans to demolish
half of the building and construct an addition. That plan would have involved a bond issue, thus adding
to the district’s debt.
In other business, the board approved work from Air Duct Maintenance Inc. for duct cleaning services
at the elementary school at a cost of $24,595.
Parents of elementary school students complained last month about a weird smell in the building. Mold
was discovered in the rooftop building that houses the heating and air conditioning equipment.
Superintendent Wes Shipley said the smell went away on Oct. 2, but having the ducts cleaned was “the
final step to make sure there is nothing there.”
Air Duct Maintenance began cleaning the ducts on Oct. 31, and is working nights and weekends. Mr.
Shipley said he polled board members ahead of time to make sure there was support for the work so
they could start before the board meeting.
Editor’s note: posted Nov. 9, 2018. An earlier version of this story contained several errors, including
the responsibilities of the professional firms, and the amounts they will be paid.
The district wants to borrow at least that much to fix structural problems that had gone unaddressed because of its financial crisis.
The Erie School District is preparing to renovate its schools with a plan that is likely to involve at least $60 million spread across many of its 16 school buildings over three years.
Just don’t expect the overhaul, all but certain to be funded through a bond issue and possibly a tax increase, to result in the construction of gleaming, new institutions of learning.
While wide-ranging, the plan comes down to three words: “warm, safe and dry,” as Superintendent Brian Polito said.
The plan will focus on such basic but critical areas as fixing leaky roofs, upgrading existing heating and air-conditioning systems, repaving parking lots, sealing and re-pointing facades and increasing safety measures. The Erie School District has put off those types of projects for years because of lack of money.
Most of the fixes, Polito said, “will be behind the walls, that the public will not see. But many of the things we have not addressed in years, or not at all, so they are a high priority.”
The 11,500-student district over the past year has raised the possibility of undertaking a building overhaul to coincide with its new five-year strategic plan, which the School Board approved in June and which concentrates on academic advancement.
Polito’s administration is in the final weeks of developing a building proposal for the School Board to consider in late October or early November. The proposed project, Polito said, will likely be divided into two phases: $60 million over three years and, if necessary, another $60 million after that.
The district’s architects on the project, with HHSDR, of Sharon, have been visiting each of the district’s buildings to examine the needs. The review has included the district’s 16 school buildings that are in use — 10 elementary schools, three middle schools, two high schools and a school for the district’s alternative education programs.
But the district is also reviewing the needs of its buildings that are no longer in use and that are for sale. They include the former Wayne, Irving and Burton schools. Roosevelt Middle School is also vacant, though it is so dilapidated that the district has said demolition is likely the most viable option.
The building plan also might include limited repairs to Veterans Stadium, including fixing leaks to the press box roof and water damage in the area of the south bleachers, said Eric Seibert, the Erie School District’s director of facilities and maintenance.
The vacant schools are part of the building plan in case the district determines it must use them in the years ahead, possibly as places to put students when other schools are under or repair or possibly as places to move students if other schools prove too expensive to fix.
“This building’s being considered for future use,” Seibert said Tuesday while on the roof during a tour of the former Burton Elementary School, 1660 Buffalo Road, which the district closed in 2012 because of declining enrollment.
“It’s being evaluated by architects and engineers to determine what, if anything, would need to be done for reopening this school if the district would decide that is something that would be favorable to us,” Seibert said.
Among those on the tour of Burton — built in 1894 and renovated in 1988 — was Tom Kapscos, a mechanical engineer with CJL Engineering, of Johnstown, which is working with the architects on the Erie School District project. Kapscos studied the roof, lighting and other fixtures in Burton.
“A lot of stuff just needs to be updated, just to bring to life, because they have not been used for so long,” Kapscos said.
A different plan
The Erie School District recently had bigger building plans.
In April 2017, as the district struggled through its financial crisis and waited on state help, Polito and his predecessor as superintendent, Jay Badams, pondered the possibility of expanding specialized magnet-school programs at the newly-created Erie High School by erecting an addition to the 500,000-square-foot building at a cost of as much as $49 million.
The addition to Erie High, which was built in the 1950s, would have been part of a districtwide building project that would have cost as much as $67 million.
The district shelved that ambitious initiative even as it has started to receive the additional $14 million in annual state funding that the General Assembly approved a year ago to keep the district solvent.
The $14 million provided the district with enough financial security to allow it to undertake a modest building program, Polito said. Instead of leveraging some of the additional funding into one large project, the district determined the money would be better spent by fixing the existing buildings, Polito said.
By spending so much on one project, the district would not “be able to address the pressing needs at the other buildings,” Polito said.
He also said the district wants to be able to set aside another portion of the $14 million to pay for education-based initiatives, including updated curriculum in core subjects, such as reading and math, as well as the hiring of behavioral interventionists at many of the schools.
The district must also come up with a building plan in the context of the financial improvement plan that a state-appointed financial administrator, Charles Zogby, is continuing to develop. The General Assembly required the appointment of the administrator in conjunction with the Erie School District receiving the additional $14 million in state aid.
“We just can’t take a look at this in a vacuum,” Polito said of the building overhaul.
Paying for the project
The Erie School District’s bond debt is $76.4 million, and Polito said the district spends about $9 million a year in debt service — about 4.5 percent of its $200.5 million budget. With no additional debt, the district would pay off the $76.4 million debt by 2031, according to district financial records.
The district’s debt service and related expenses are below the average for the state’s 500 school districts, according to a district analysis.
To borrow the $60 million for the building project, Polito said, the district would extend its debt payments by about another 15 years, and “wrap” the new debt payments around the current payments, similar to when a homeowner extends a mortgage.
The district could finance the entire additional bond debt — in an initial amount of $60 million — by extending the debt. But Polito, a certified public accountant and the Erie School District’s former chief financial officer, said the district would save a total of $12 million in debt service payments over 15 years if the district used about $3 million of its own funds a year to make additional bond payments over the longer period of borrowing.
Once the district spends the $60 million, Polito said, the administration and the School Board could explore whether the district needs to borrow another $60 to make more repairs.
The initial $60 million, Seibert said, will be “applied to our most troubling issues.”
As for a tax increase, Polito said his administration and the board will have to determine whether the district needs to raise taxes to keep the district’s budget balanced as it spends more on building projects and education initiatives, such as the upgraded curriculum.
Despite the appointment of the financial administrator, the Erie School Board still has sole control over whether to raise taxes.
And under the state formula that caps the amount of a school district’s possible tax increase, the Erie School District currently can raise property taxes by no more than 3.7 percent, a figure that is expected to remain steady in the years ahead. The district’s current budget includes a tax increase of 0.5 percent, which raised taxes by about $8 a year for the owner of a house assessed at $100,000.
Polito, who started as superintendent in July 2017, said he wants the School Board to consider smaller tax increases from year to year to keep the district solvent as it manages its debt payments and other costs. He said he wants to avoid situations in which his administration “is kicking the can down the road and limiting future administrations’ ability to balance the budget.”
His goal, Polito said, is for the district to spend as much as it can on capital projects and educational programs while maintaining the financial stability that has come with the increased state funding. The building program, Polito predicted, will not be flashy, but will leave the district with something it needs: “Warm, safe and dry buildings.”
Ed Palattella can be reached at 870-1813 or by email. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ETNpalattella.
Comments Off on CJL Engineering Takes Home TWO Electric League Awards
On Friday, October 5, 2018, CJL Engineering attended the annual Electric League Lighting Awards, was the proud recipient of two 2018 Awards for the Union Trust Building, in the categories of Outdoor Lighting and Sustainable Design.
While John Wilhelm, Kent Lewis and Amy Ford accepted the awards on behalf of the company, many CJL employees contributed to this success.
CJL Engineering would also like to congratulate all the winners of the Electric League Lighting design awards!
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