CB East Renovations Let in the Light

When CB East students head to the school on Holicong Road next week, they might not recognize it.

A face lift has been underway at the high school in Buckingham, and the latest upgrades will be plain to see - through.

What was once a featureless beige box has been redesigned with a new front entrance and - brace for it - windows.

Yes, windows.

Those panes of glass that let in sunshine.

Those panes of glass that were, apparently, not very popular in school construction when Central Bucks East High School was built more than 40 years ago.

"You have to remember the time. It was typical of the 1970s, the time of the energy crisis, to not have windows," said Scott Kennedy, Central Bucks School District's director of operations.

"In 1970, glass was terrible. It wasn't energy efficient at all," Kennedy said one recent afternoon while showing a visitor around the school. "Now, it is, so you can add windows and let in the light."

While students and teachers have been on vacation this summer, contractors were hard at work at East, cutting new windows into the long wall that fronts the cafeteria.

Those updates will be ready for students when school starts, Kennedy said.

They join the new science wing at the opposite end of the building, which added 14 new science labs, along with computer labs and a television studio. That wing opened in January 2012.

Other phases of the multi-million dollar upgrade will continue into the school year, Kennedy said.

The new lobby and administrative offices are scheduled to be complete by the end of December, said project manager John Giannini.

That portion of the project will give CB East a defined entrance and a focal point, said architect Mark Marella.

"The circulation patterns in the building were crazy, and it was really dark," said Marella, who is with KCBA Architects.

"This new lobby gives it one big, unifying element," Marella said. "Plus, with the daylight streaming in, people will be drawn to it and will move through it to get to other parts of the building."

Future phases of the school's renovation will upgrade the art and music rooms, Kennedy said. That work is scheduled to start in January 2013 and last through next summer.