Schools Development Authority Announces Opening of Two School Facilities this September More Than 3,600 Students to Benefit from School Openings

TRENTON - As students return to school, the New Jersey Schools Development Authority (SDA) announced the opening of one new school and one addition/renovation project that will provide more than 3,600 seats for students in two New Jersey school districts. The delivery of these school construction projects continues SDA's commitment to building high-quality, highperforming school facilities that best meet the needs of the students of New Jersey

"The opening of these new educational spaces represents more than just steel and bricks -- it marks the beginning of a new chapter in the education of thousands of students both now and in the years to come," said SDA CEO Manuel Da Silva. "One of the SDA's greatest responsibilities is to ensure New Jersey's students have the school facilities that they need in order to learn and thrive. With the support of Governor Murphy, SDA is working hard to ensure that all of our State's children and educators have schools in which they can succeed, regardless of zip code. The opening of these schools is another step forward toward that goal."

The two completed school projects represent a State investment of $350 million. The openings include the new Perth Amboy High School and an addition/renovation project at Cleveland Street Elementary School in Orange.

The new Perth Amboy High School is an approximately 576,000 square-foot, threestory facility designed to educate a maximum of 3,300 students in ninth to twelfth grades. In addition to general classrooms and science labs, the school includes specialized educational spaces such as an automotive lab, culinary arts lab, black box studio, dance studio, ROTC Classroom, world languages classroom, life skills lab, and a daycare center. The new school was built on an 11.63-acre property owned by the Perth Amboy School District. This is the largest project undertaken by the SDA since the start of the State's school construction program.

The SDA's addition/renovation project at the Cleveland Street Elementary School in Orange included an 11,500 square-foot addition and renovations to the 100+ year-old existing facility. The renovations included converting the basement areas to provide a main office, a media center, an art room, a music room, a science room, and a computer instructional area. It also included replacement of windows throughout the building, as well as new HVAC equipment, and a replacement stair installation.

The design of the new school and the addition incorporated guidelines developed by the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) known as the "Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design ("LEED®") program in order to achieve maximum energy efficiency and environmental sustainability in the design of schools.

The Perth Amboy High School was built using a design-build approach. The design-build method differs from the traditional approach by allowing the SDA to contract with one firm for both design and construction of a school facilities project. The addition/renovation project utilized a traditional design-bid-build approach.