Demolition begins in new school project in Garfield

GARFIELD Demolition began Friday on the husk of an old school building, clearing the way for an elementary school expected to reduce some of the districts crowding problem.

The New Jersey Schools Development Authority plans to spend $28 million on the future James Madison School Number 10, Authority Chief Executive Officer Charles McKenna said at the site.

The project has two phases, he said: remediation and demolition of the existing structure followed by construction he anticipated would begin before the end of 2015. The building once housed Most Holy Name School and for a time James Madison School.

The new school, at the corner of Passaic Street and Marsellus Place across from the Most Holy Name Church, will be the third in Garfield to receive SDA funding. McKenna said $69 million had been provided for the Garfield Early Childhood Learning Center and Garfield Middle School, as well as 12 grants.

The new building will have nearly 53,000 square feet of space, McKenna said. Superintendent Nicholas Perrapato estimated it would serve about 350 students from kindergarten through the fifth grade.

The school is expected to alleviate some of the crowding the district is experiencing. Of the 5,300 or so students in the school district, more than 1,000 are unhoused, meaning they are being taught in trailers or rented facilities, Perrapato said.

Were just getting overcrowded, Perrapato said of the situation. Mayor Tana Raymond agreed that the new school is much needed in our city. We are overcrowded.

The old building had some sentimental value for the superintendent and the mayor: Most Holy Name School was where Perrapato attended kindergarten through eighth grade in the 1950s and early 1960s, and where Raymond took Catholic doctrine classes in preparation for her First Communion in the 1950s.

Wearing hard hats, they watched as an excavator knocked down two brick columns on the second floor in what was once Perrapatos third-grade classroom.

Denise Petrizzo, owner of Tricon Enterprises Inc., the business contracted to demolish the building, said the process would take about a month: two weeks to knock the building down and two weeks to remove all the materials.

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Demolition begins in new school project in Garfield