New Canaan this week took a big step toward the widely anticipated renovation of Saxe Middle School’s aging auditorium, with the creation of a volunteer panel to oversee the project.
The Saxe Auditorium Building Committee includes elected and district officials as well as private citizens. The town approved $175,000 for project designs in the current fiscal year, with $2 million earmarked for the actual work in fiscal year 2016, budget documents show.
Part of the original 1957 building, the Saxe auditorium received a “poor” rating in an August 2013 facilities survey.
Interim Superintendent of Schools Dr. Bryan Luizzi described the auditorium as both an instructional and performance space “and it hasn’t been updated, maintained or renovated in an awfully long time.”
“We’ve got a situation where the seats are broken and the space itself is no longer serving the needs of the school or the community,” Luizzi told NewCanaanite.com.
The building committee will set about interviewing prospective designers and start working on plans, Luizzi said.
Voting members of the building committee will include Jim Beall, Ken Campbell, Nancy Harris, Molly Ludtke, Penny Rashin, Alan Sneath and Bill Walbert, following a unanimous vote at the Aug. 5 Board of Selectmen meeting. Non-voting, ex officio members will include Sangeeta Appel, Hazel Hobbs, Bryan Luizzi, Greg Macedo and Bob Willoughby.
Luizzi said the work at Saxe—planning this fiscal year and then physical work the following year—should dovetail with another major district project, the windows replacement at South School, to minimize the effects of multiple capital projects on school buildings.
“We will phase in the work that needs to be done,” Luizzi said. “To do this work right takes time.”