Switlik School getting $23M upgrade

If all goes according to plan, Marathon will have a revamped Stanley Switlik Elementary School by fall 2020.

That was the time line given by architects from Harvard Jolly Architecture Wednesday night at the first in a string of upcoming community meetings to be held at the school, 3400 Overseas Highway.

Switlik Elementary, near mile marker 48.5 bayside, will be the third Monroe County School District elementary school to be revamped in recent years. About 550 students attend it.

The main classroom building, which houses the library and was built in 1971, will be torn down and rebuilt.

The cafeteria, built in 2000, will be revamped along with the 29,000-square-foot classroom building named after Sue Moore and constructed in 1997. Moore was one of the first teachers in Marathon.

Michael Skrodinsky, facilities planner for the district, told the Keynoter $23 million is a rough cost estimate for the Switlik project.

Rene Tercilla and Stephen Johnson, senior vice presidents for Harvard Jolly, presented a slide show to parents and community members Wednesday with examples of other schools they’ve designed in Florida. Representatives from Ajax Building Corp., in charge of construction management services, were also at the meeting.

There aren’t conceptual drawings for Switlik yet but Tercilla said the design plans will include input from the community.

“The plans will be completed at the end of this year, after which we’ll permit and start construction,” Tercilla said, adding construction will most likely start in June 2018 and take about two years to complete.

The project is being funded through a portion of the district’s existing tax levy.

“The concept started when we started the planning process to renew the half-cent sales tax,” Lefere said.

That was in March 2016 when voters approved in a referendum the renewal of a half-cent sales tax raised by the district, which generates $11.3 million a year from local property taxes and is used for capital projects.

The district is in the midst of building a new Plantation Key School in Tavernier, which at last count was costing $32 million, and a new $32 million Gerald Adams Elementary School on Stock Island.

A date for the next meeting is still in the works.

This story was originally published April 1, 2017 at 8:50 AM with the headline "Switlik School getting $23M upgrade."