Hi all,

Things have been so busy at Summer Street we have hardly had a second to catch our breath and update everyone!  Here’s the latest;  please excuse the bullets!

• Our great new entry porch has been framed;  and alumni and current parents will be putting down decking later this month at the Alumni Work Day organized by Jeff Levine.
• All our new windows have arrived, and the majority have been installed by parents over the past two work weekends.  There are just a few windows up high that we’ve left for a contractor to put in.
• The entire building will be receiving brand ...
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Things have started to pick up on construction at the New Agassiz.  An update:

• All interior walls have been framed out, so we can all now experience the true shape of the place.
• The plumbers have begun building out our entirely new system from 3rd floor to basement.
• The final sprinkler, lighting, heating, insulation, and siding specifications have been sent out to bid.

As for our parent work this weekend, its time to replace the windows.  The shipment of over 40 windows will be on site come Saturday morning, and we’ll have them all in by Sunday evening.

Additional project samples for this weekend:

• Floor patching.
• Finishing ...
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Hi all,

Work has continued over the last couple weeks at Summer Street.  Our new roof is on and 95% of the interior framing is done.  The plumbers have been in the building for over a week and excavation for new water lines will begin this coming Monday.  Our final fire protection, lighting, heating, insulation, and siding drawings/specifications have been assembled and these items are all out to bid.  Generally speaking, the proposals coming back to us are on budget – some higher, some lower.
Many of our parent volunteers did a great job giving the yard a big clean-up two ...
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Hi Everyone,

Well, with good weather comes good news at Summer Street.  The roofers have waited out the New England monsoon season and are finally installing our new roof this week.  All the old shingles are off and the new ones are going on as we speak.  The framers have finished about 95% of the interior partitions, and final drawings for electrical, plumbing, heating, fire protection, and lighting are being finalized this week so that these trades can be bid and the work can begin.  Our window order has been finalized and placed, and we expect the windows to arrive in ...
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Hi all,

Last week was a particularly busy week on the site, as the framing crew worked six days to get the vast majority of the framing done. The new stair is finished, the interior partitions are 90% done, and all new openings for windows and doors have been cut.  At the work weekend earlier this month, parent volunteers prepped all the existing window openings to receive new windows, which have been ordered and will arrive on-site toward the end of April.  On Monday this week, I walked through the building with the architect and builder in order to review the ...
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This from one of our wonderful parent helpers:

Have you ever ripped shingles off the wall of a building?

I hadn’t either, but that’s part of what I got to do on the February work weekend at Agassiz’s new building. More than 20 parents spent the day at the building taking walls down, patching floorboards, cleaning out the basement, and pulling out nails from boards that could be salvaged for re-use. I also had the privilege of using a big shop vac to vacuum up lots of debris, which was very satisfying .

At the end of the day, my muscles were sore ...
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Greetings Loyal Readers,

My apologies for the long delay since the last post!  The month of February saw the return to action at Summer Street, as the last building code questions were answered and our general contractor began building the new stair and entry at the west end of the building – the last piece of the new construction to be added to the building’s size and shape.  We had an incredibly successful work weekend in February as well, and we are looking forward to another one next weekend.

Next steps for the contractor include finishing the framing of the new stair ...
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Hi everyone,

It’s been a quiet couple weeks on the job site, but behind the scenes there has been plenty of activity.

Last week, the Massachusetts State Plumbing Board and Elevator Board finally approved variance requests that we had made earlier in this winter.  These variances were mainly procedural, necessitated by specific conditions in our old building, but they have now paved the way for new work to begin:  ordering and installing the lift, finalizing plumbing bids, etc.

Meanwhile, I have been working daily with our architect, our builder, and the city’s office of Inspectional Services to revise and finalize a strategy for ...
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Hi everyone,

Thanks to the few of you who turned up on short notice [again] for another work day on Saturday.  We got a lot of good work done in advance of an important meeting with the building inspector set for this Thursday.  The architect, builder, and city are sorting out a few final questions regarding the building code, after which framing will begin again for the new stair at the driveway end of the building.

In the meantime, Joel Bennett, Seth Riskin, and Jeff Levine are working together to put together a survey to try to understand the availability and skill ...
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Hi everyone,

Work at Summer Street slowed a bit over the holidays and while the architect, builder, and I try to sort out some building code questions related to the new fire stair.  However, the foundations are now all poured and backfilled, and the interior of the building is ready for some parent work crews.

Joel Bennett and I will be hosting another work day this Saturday, Jan. 16th, from 9:00 to 2:00. The weather report is calling for temperatures in the mid-40s, so it will be a good day to work in an unheated building.  There will be a new dumpster ...
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