The Norfolk School Building Committee should be able to hold a cost estimate meeting for the new elementary school on March 24, said architect Jorge Cruz. Cruz discussed the near future of planning the project during the School Building Committee meeting this past Wednesday night. The committee this week created a three-member “working group” of committee members to meet one weekday morning each week for the next month and authorize changes in the project that require expendi­tures as they come up, pending ap­proval by the full building commit­tee, which meets less frequently. School officials hope to prepare bid documents over the course of the next several months after that, in hopes of putting the project out to bid by the end of August. Norfolk voters in December approved a $36.9 million appro­priation for the project, which is designed to replace Freeman-Cen­tennial School on Boardman Street. Appropriations for building projects are based on rough cost estimates, which become more precise as the building is designed in detail.

The schedule calls for the new building to be completed around June 2012 and to be open for the start of the school year in Septem­ber 2012. Freeman-Centennial would be demolished during the summer of 2012.