SALEM The school district has grudgingly reached a settlement over the improper installation of the gym floor at the Lancaster Elementary School.

It has been a frustrating experience with the installation and failure of the mondo-synthetic floor, said Superintendent Michael Delahanty.

For the better part of two years, Delahanty said the district has struggled with Business Interiors of Massachusetts, the company that installed the floor, as well as with the company that supplied the adhesive for the floor.

While the company did attempt to patch several areas of the gym floor where it had lifted from the base, Delahanty said those attempts were ultimately a failure.

Delahanty said the district eventually contacted Gilbane Construction, the construction manager for the renovation project at the Lancaster School. During that time, the district also moved forward with the installation of a more expensive wood floor for the gym, similar to the gym floors at the more rececently renovated Fisk and Soule elementary schools.

Gilbane helped the district arrangea $25,000 settlement for the faulty flooring. Delahanty said that figure represents the $32,000 cost of a new synthetic flooring minus 20 percent installation and labor costs.

We tried to get that number increased a little, but there was no budging from that $25,000 figure, said Delahanty.

If the district were to attempt to litigate to try to get a larger settlement, Delahanty said it would be likely the district would end up spending more money than it was worth in legal fees.

School Board member Pamela Berry voted to accept the settlement, but said the whole process had put a bitter taste in her mouth.

I feel like the district was taken advantage of with the faulty installation, and no one stepped forward to own up to it, said Berry.

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School district reaches settlement for faulty gym floor

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The Faber field turf conversation continues tonight at the borough council's fourth information forum.

Repeat broadcasts of the entire proceeding can be accessed via television through Glen Rock TV.

Voters will decide on the municipality's $3 million synthetic turf bond proposal in a Nov. 4 referendum.

A special Oct. 1 work session began with an hour of public turf discussion. A major element was a disagreement between engineers over the council's cost estimates for the installation of roughly 4.4 acres of synthetic turf in the conceptual field plan.

The exchange involved borough consulting engineer Michael DeSena of Stantec, and Jerry Dorost, a Glen Rock resident and longtime field engineer who had questioned the preliminary cost assumptions at a previous meeting not attended by DeSena.

After a private meeting of the two, the dialogue continued in public last Wednesday, following that day's posting of a more detailed itemization of estimated costs on the borough website. (Details of the expanded cost breakdowns for both synthetic and natural field installations can be accessed through the link titled "Revised Faber Field Budget Explanation" on the borough home page at glenrocknj.net.)

Despite the additional detail and DeSena's Oct. 8 responses, Dorost maintained his position that the borough was underestimating the installation and maintenance costs of synthetic turf, while overestimating the corresponding costs for the natural grass alternative.

"I guess we'll have to just agree to disagree," Dorost said, twice telling council members that he "didn't envy them having to decide" which of the professionals was correct.

DeSena began his remarks by noting that he and associates had reviewed the original cost estimates, isolating some 27 previously bundled costs including all turf and related components - noting the higher costs accounted for in sections of the field requiring more sub-surface stone to ensure stability and drainage performance. Other itemized costs included excavation and earthmoving, drainage infrastructure elements, benches, removal and replacement of fencing, baseball accessories, foul poles, sports lighting, soccer goals, a multi-use scoreboard and others.

He said the total remained at $2.735 million for the synthetic turf as proposed, "a figure we remain comfortable with." Officials have previously noted that the difference between that and the $3 million to be bonded allows for various ancillary expenses, including engineering and bond-related fees, as well as contingencies - a cushion Dorost also said might be too low.

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Engineers debate costs of converting Glen Rock field to turf

Architects and the building industry have criticised the report by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) on green buildings titled Building Sense and said it makes unfair comparisons and does not adopt a correct approach.

Data put out by the Indian Green Building Council (IGBC) on energy consumption of large commercial buildings that were rated and awarded silver, gold and platinum rating, under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green rating programme, are grossly underperforming, the CSE report had said. Several of them could not qualify even for the one star label under the star labelling programme of the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE) that ranks buildings based on their energy efficiency when operational, according to the report.

However, S Raghupathy, Executive Director, CIIGodrej Green Business Centre said the interpretation of data was not correct and misleading. Office buildings should never be compared with IT buildings. The Energy Performance Index (EPI) concept developed by the BEE is presently available only for three types of buildings malls, Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) centres and commercial offices.

One cannot compare an office building vis--vis data centers, malls, BPO showrooms, hospitals, and hotels etc., which are unique in their own ways. The report compares an 8-hour office building with other types of buildings, which is totally incorrect, Mr. Raghupathy said.

Clarifying the CSE report, Avikal Somvanshi, senior research associate, CSE said, BEE has developed EPI benchmarks for various building typologies based on which it awards star labels to buildings. It has rated 135 office buildings and 26 BPO buildings for energy efficiency so far.

The CSE has just compared the energy performance of IGBC-LEED rated buildings disclosed by IGBC on its website, and found gross under-performance, he said.

Questions were being raised about EPI not being right measure of judging energy, he said adding that the CSE had not framed these benchmarks and standards which were being questioned.

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Architects question CSE report on green buildings

The Chartiers Valley School District is using an advisory team of administrators, students, teachers and architects to determine the scope of a renovation/construction project at the middle school and high school.

The district is working with Downtown-based architects, IKM Inc., which has brought BLRB Architects, based in Oregon and Washington, as consultants for the project.

The 486,000-square-foot high school/middle school complex was built in 1970; its last renovation was in 2006.

Matt Hansen, project manager with IKM, said the firm looked to BLRB because of its expertise in school construction projects. While IKM has done work at higher-education facilities such as Slippery Rock Universitys Physical Therapy Building and alumni centers at West Virginia University and Grove City College, it has not done much work with school districts.

IKM is known for its work designing health care facilities, such as St. Clair Hospitals outpatient center in Peters and Childrens Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMCs outpatient center in South Fayette.

Mr. Hansen said one of the main focuses in the process of renovating or constructing a school is to look to stakeholders for newer ideas.

The reality is that all of this has been done before, Mr. Hansen said about traditional school construction.

The project has not been specifically defined yet, but it might include a mixture of demolition, renovation and new construction.

In September, school design advisory teams that include parents, taxpayers, teachers, administrators and students began to meet to talk about what they want in the school.

On Tuesday and Wednesday members of some of the advisory teams will tour several schools in the Washington, D.C., and Baltimore areas to glean new ideas.

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Advisory teams for Chartiers Valley school renovation plan to tour facilities in D.C. area

The family that's owned a strategic North Dallas property for more than a century wants to redevelop the site.

The Daniel family hopes to tear down the 40-year-old rental homes on the northwest corner of Inwood and Forest Lane. The old townhomes would be replaced by new apartments, some neighborhood retail space and sports fields for Jesuit College Preparatory School of Dallas.

"We see it as a redevelopment opportunity that would be a betterment for the community and provide amenities for the neighborhood," said William Dahlstrom with Jackson Walker LLP who is representing the owners. "We want to do a legacy type property that would last forever."

The 30-acre property is now occupied by more than 200 townhouses and surface parking lots.

The owners are working with apartment builder Greystar, retail real estate firm Regency Centers and next door neighbor Jesuit Prep School on the redevelopment plans.

"We've owned the property since 1849," said John Daniel. "Frances Sims Daniel came in a wagon from Tennessee.

"She bought a section of land that the center of was very close to Airline and Daniel street near SMU," he said. "They bought other property and this was once a farm."

In 1972, the land was zoned for construction of the Forestwood Townhomes which have occupied the corner since then.

The property is about a block off the Dallas North Tollway and just south of LBJ Freeway.

Laird Sparks with Greystar said the plan is to build "townhome type residences.

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Owners of key North Dallas corner plan new apartments, Jesuit sports fields

PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:

15-Oct-2014

Contact: Bobbie Mixon bmixon@nsf.gov 703-292-8485 National Science Foundation @NSF

In 2012, knowledge intensive (KI) services industries--business, finance and information--produced $3.4 trillion in value-added output, more than one-fifth of the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP), and employed 18 million workers. Data are from a new report released today by the National Science Foundation's (NSF) National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics.

KI services industries and the smaller high-technology (HT) manufacturing industries--aerospace, communications, computers, pharmaceuticals, scientific instruments and semiconductors--make up commercial knowledge and technology-intensive (KTI) industries. KI services industries employed 18 million workers and produced 22 percent of GDP. HT manufacturing industries employed 2 million workers and produced 2 percent of GDP in 2012.

KTI industries have a particularly strong link to science and technology and perform three-fourths of U.S. business research and development, an important source of innovation and economic growth.

Employment in KTI industries represented 15 percent of the U.S. workforce in 2012, with workers performing activities such as manufacturing, computer systems design, architectural and engineering, data processing, radio and television broadcasting hosting and other related services. A complete list can be found in the NCSES report.

The report also finds wages for U.S. commercial KTI industries workers are much higher than they are in other industries. In 2011, the average salaries of KI services industries and HT manufacturing industries were more than $20,000 higher than the private-sector average. However, average salaries vary widely among individual commercial KI services and HT manufacturing industries.

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18 million workers produced more than one-fifth of US gross domestic product in 2012

On the living room wall of Stacey Maloney's West Leechburg home hangs a plaque with the word faith in large letters.

The fact that the 104-year-old Second Street house, dedicated Wednesday, now belongs to her is one reason why.

I was looking to buy a home, but I didn't have much credit, being so young, said Maloney, 24, a registered nurse at the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Pittsburgh.

But Maloney, a single mom with an 8-month-old son, Jaxton, believes things happen for a reason. When she walked into the Habitat for Humanity ReStore in New Kensington and met Mike McElhaney, executive director of Armstrong County Habitat for Humanity, that seemed to be the case.

Habitat for Humanity, a nonprofit organization, builds new houses and restores old ones, then sells them to low-income working people who might otherwise not be able to own their own home. Once a buyer's eligibility is verified, he or she is required to chip in sweat equity by participating in the construction or restoration and receive mortgages with little or no interest.

Maloney inquired about obtaining a house through Habitat, and McElhaney said he had one in West Leechburg. The house was abandoned after a mortgage foreclosure and was owned by the Bank of America.

Mark Battaglia, a bank senior vice president based in the South Hills, who came to West Leechburg for the dedication, said the bank has a 25-year agreement with Habitat. Under that agreement with Habitat for Humanity International, the bank donates vacant or abandoned properties to help provide affordable housing for low-income families nationwide.

Battaglia also said bank employees donate 30,000 hours of volunteer time each year to help restore the houses, which was the case with Maloney's house.

In Pennsylvania, we've had four donations completed for Habitat, Battaglia said, adding that Maloney's house is the first one in this area. Banks have to give back to their local communities by law, and this is one example, he said.

You just can't have a neater program than having foreclosed houses being donated to Habitat, McElhaney said.

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Hard work, faith, Habitat for Humanity equal home for young mother, son