With everything from bleacher demolitions to a new baseball field to a brand new library for students at Rochester Adams, the construction crews that have been working around the clock since the summer are hard at work. For many students, it has become the “new norm” to see all this construction going on outside. But The Adams Kilt refuses to let their hard work go unnoticed. Thus, the following is a brief summary of what is getting done.

The football stadium, long in need of a renovation, had its bleachers disassembled six weeks ago. The plan is to completely reconstruct the home-side bleachers and construct a brand new press box on the top.

“You will be able to walk underneath the bleachers too,” said Rochester Adams principal Pasquale Cusamano.

This will be similar to Rochester High School’s new bleacher system and provide more walking space behind them. This plan is to construct a new building on the far side by Van Hoosen Middle School. This building will serve as the new concession stand, more storage space, and a public bathroom space which will be much more convenient as opposed to outhouses behind the bleachers. New light-emitting diode (LED) lights will also be installed along with a new sound system surrounding the entire field. Although the track will stay put, brand new turf is set to replace the old, just in time for the 2018 football season.

The baseball field is in the process of being moved to the upper fields. A retention pond will take the place of the old field’s location to help manage flooding and create a center where rainwater and snow drain off will naturally collect in one space rather than cause water damage on the school’s infrastructure. The baseball field project is set to finish by the spring of 2018.

Students may have noticed workers working on the front entrance for a while now at Adams. Basically, they have been redesigning the cement ceilings and stairs. The old cement was beginning to look run down and aged; chiseled away by years and years of ice and water. Eventually, there will even be a vestibule system where visitors will have to buzz in to get inside the school.

“It will be similar to how many elementary schools do it now,” said Cusamano.

Labs 214 and 215 will be completely gutted and redone over winter break. There will be new floors, desktops, and furniture too, including brand new roller chairs.

The media center is perhaps the biggest renovation project of them all. During spring break of 2018, the library will be completely gutted and redesigned. They will bring in new furniture and faster technology, similar to how Rochester High School renovated their main library over the summer.

Looked up at the ceiling in the cafeteria or in the senior center lately? There are some heavily stained tiles due to water damage in desperate need of replacement. Now that the roof was redone over the summer of 2017, repairs on the ceilings can begin. The walls also have gotten somewhat dirty. Because of this, the construction crew plans to replace these ceiling tiles and also give the cafeteria and the senior center walls a fresh coat of paint.

Over the coming summer, construction workers will be pouring cement over all of the Adams parking lots including Highlander Highway. New LED lights will be installed around the parking lots to provide lighting during both dark winter mornings and late-at-night home football games. It is not just the paving and lights that are getting a change-up, it is the entire layout of the parking lot. Both car loops in the front of the building are being re-engineered to provide more parking spaces and more efficiency when either leaving or exiting the front parking lots. The cement patio area outside the athletic entrance will also be getting replaced. The stairs connecting the athletic and auditorium were becoming cracked with heavy use, so the construction crew is currently in the process of replacing those too.

Other miscellaneous construction plans around the school include new LED lights in both the main and auxiliary gymnasiums, new bleachers in the auxiliary gym, and brand new tennis courts outside the athletic entrance. To top it all off, by the time the 2018-2019 school year rolls around, new interactive smart panels will be installed in every classroom around Adams to make learning easier and more visual for students across all four grades.

All in all, it is obvious that the district is making strides to fix up the school and modernize both the interior and exterior of the building. The construction crews are on schedule and plan to have everything done by the 2018-2019 school year thanks to the hard work the contruction crew is putting in.