City buildings to undergo construction in Huntington Woods

HUNTINGTON WOODS — A couple of projects in Huntington Woods will coincide next to each other starting in June.

Huntington Woods will be starting a roofing and heating, ventilating and air-conditioning project at the Gillham Recreation Center, 26363 Scotia Road, on June 16. This project will be occurring at the same time as bond construction work at the neighboring Burton Elementary School.

According to the city of Huntington Woods, a staging area will be set up on this day with roofing materials that will block off 10 parking spots in the middle of the lot.

The following day, on June 17, the walkway between the Recreation Center and Burton will close, cutting off the path between the center and school. The walkway is expected to reopen on July 1.

In addition to a new roof and HVAC system, interim City Manager Andrew Pazuchowski said the Recreation Center will be getting solar panels. He also said all city buildings, including City Hall, the Public Safety Department and the Huntington Woods Library, will be getting new HVAC systems and switching to LED light bulbs to help conserve energy.

“The Rec Center is the only one actually getting a roof,” he said. “They’re just so old. They’re 20 or 30 years old.”

The city also stated that the student drop-off area will remain in the recreation center parking lot and that there will be a pedestrian path that will reroute walkers around the construction zone on Nadine Avenue to enter Burton Park, located on the north side of Nadine. Through-traffic also will be closed on Nadine between Scotia and Henley with barriers in place.

The Recreation Center will be the first of the facilities to be done, followed by the other buildings.

“The unfortunate part for all this for us, though, is there’s no good time,” Pazuchowski said of the project. “We have such a small footprint. We got Newport (Boulevard) getting sewers and a new road, and then we’re getting Scotia that’s getting mill and fill, and then we have that. And with a school there, we were able to delay it. So that project will not start now until June 16 so they’ll be out of school. So that’s awesome, but the problem is, and we try to explain that to residents, there’s just no good time if we wait. The kids are back in school in September, you know, with the roads and that. So we just couldn’t delay anything.”

The bond construction at Burton includes building a new multipurpose cafeteria addition and new finishes for the gymnasium, the district’s director of communications, Jessica Stilger, said in a prepared statement.

“The new addition is in an area that occupied part of the playground, so there is a new playground area inside the track now to relocate the equipment,” she stated. “Currently, the masonry is nearly done and steel is being installed on the new addition. We expect the new addition to be completed in late August/early September. The gym work will be completed this summer, and the new playground area is nearly complete.”