Meriden School Pavilions

  Location: Meriden, CT 

Client: Meriden Public Schools

If there was a silver lining for educators and students that came out of the Covid pandemic, it was thinking outside the box – or in the case of Meriden’s public schools, thinking outside the classroom. With kids taking more breaks outside in the fresh air, learning lessons soon started taking place more and more outside. Meriden administrators saw this as an opportunity to create learning pavilions (5 in total) and received grant funding to bring these projects to life.

We were responsible for all of the foundation and concrete work that made the pavilions possible. Starting in April, we began prepping the sites with the need to have the pavilions in place prior to the return of students in the fall. Four of them were sized 28’ x 32’ and the largest, at Thomas Edison School, was 84’ x 44’ and required pier foundations – some that were 30” wide x 5’ deep. A stretch of summer heat created concrete pour challenges that we overcame by working very early hours while the day was its coolest – this allowed us to wash and seal the stamped concrete over a 10 day period while the concrete cured. All the projects finished on time to welcome students in the fall – local News 3 featured the pavilions in a news story – view that here to see the completed work and the positive impact these new spaces have created for learning.