HOLLIDAYSBURG — Board members were presented with details of a potential renovation of the junior high school costing about $24.2 million and how it could be funded during a Hollidaysburg Area School District Physical Plant Committee meeting Wednesday evening.

The presentation centered around the building’s boiler system, which is “in excess” of 40 years old, said Eric Petrazio, account executive for the McClure Company.

When questioned why the boilers needed to be completely removed and replaced, Petrazio said the systems “in the buildings are at the end of their life.”

“They lived a long life and you squeezed a lot of dollars out of them,” Petrazio said.

District physical plant Director Jonathan Nihart added they’ve “had one boiler down all winter.”

“Two of (the boilers) are from 1985 and one of them is actually from the ’60s,” Nihart said. “Over the past, I’d say four or five years, I think three of those years, we’ve repaired leaks in the boilers. They’ve had to come in and cut pieces out and weld them back in.”

Nihart’s biggest concern is the acquisition of parts, because when a service company diagnosed what was wrong with the out-of-commission boiler, the part “wasn’t even available.”

“It had to be actually fabricated, and it was a 14-week lead time just to make a part,” Nihart said.

Board member Kenneth Snyder then asked if there would be a significant savings with an efficiency jump from 80% with their current boiler system to 99.5% with a new boiler system to offset the cost of installing the new boilers, to which Petrazio said “with the low cost of gas, that cost variance is a challenge to make up.”

“Just because, if you think of you’re saving 10 to 15%, is it really going to pay for that boiler?” Petrazio asked rhetorically. “Typically it’s not going to pay for it all the way through.”

The renovation presentation also included electrical upgrades, as most of the junior high’s “assets are approaching 45 years at this point,” Petrazio said. They would upgrade switchgear, panel boards, bring the fire alarm up to code and conduct a power system study.

“We’re also going to upgrade the generator to provide increased capacity to the boilers and the hot water pumps,” Petrazio said. “So right now, I don’t believe they’re even hooked up to that, so that’ll maintain heat when the power’s out.”

Other projects include creating a secure vestibule at the building’s main entrance, replacing the roof, refurbishing the bell tower and parapet wall, replacing interior doors, replacing corridor ceilings with lighting upgrades and gymnasium ceiling TECTUM panel system installation.

According to a renovation chart provided by the McClure Company, the HVAC upgrades would cost about $18,801,007; electrical panels and switchboard replacements about $904,302; emergency generator replacement about $186,180; fire alarm replacements about $858,726; secure vestibule about $315,907; roofing about $1,038,370; interior doors about $901,864; corridor ceiling and lighting about $420,632; and gym ceiling about $396,687. With a payment and performance bond of $144,340 and an owner-controlled contingency allowance of 1% or $238,237, the total project cost is about $24,206,249.

Petrazio said McClure is targeting a June 2026 start because “we would like a full year of project prep.”

“We would be under contract for the job before 2026, obviously, but we would begin the project in June and the project would be wrapped up in August,” Petrazio said. “We would like a full year of pre-project development.”

Advisors with Public Financial Management out of Harrisburg also gave a presentation to the board on potential plans to finance the project. Bradley Remig said the district had “a pretty attractive debt portfolio.”

Looking at the numbers, Remig said the district had about $3.576 million in gross debt and about $480,000 in current revenue.

Melissa Hughes laid out a two-step financing plan that “borrows $15 million in August of 2025” and then “comes back and borrows the balance of the project in 2026.”

“The entirety of the escrow project is paid off over a 20-year term,” Hughes said. “Again, that’s a provision of state law.”

As the junior high roof “has a longer useful life” of at least 25 years, PFM would finance the roof portion over 25 years, Hughes said.

“And we’re doing that for a couple of reasons,” Hughes said. “First, good asset liability matching, and second, it provides you a little bit more budgetary flexibility as you’re looking down the road to this project.”

Following the meeting, Superintendent Curtis Whitesel said the proposed project wasn’t “a done deal yet.”

“We have to bring it to a vote if we think there’s enough support for it,” Whitesel said. “If there’s not enough support, it’ll be tabled.”

While Whitesel admitted the district has let its capital reserve fund “diminish over the years,” he said their goal is to “start putting more money into our capital reserve.”

He also said the district is “in a great place” with its debt.

“You’re always encouraged to have some debt, so we are in a great place right now,” Whitesel said. “That’s why we’re considering doing it. We’re in a great place to borrow money because our debt services are getting ready to end.”

When asked how the district would fund the project aside from raising taxes, Whitesel said the district hoped to use state funding.

“Just with basic ed funding, if the state would come through and give us what we feel we deserve,” Whitesel said. “We feel like we’re constantly getting cheated. Again, some of that comes to the fact that we don’t tax to our full capabilities, and the state holds that against us.”