BY JEFF CHUDZINSKINorth Country This Week

MASSENA -- Massena Central School District officials are weighing the next projects for the district, leading to meetings with three architectural firms in the coming days.

The process is progressing "rapidly," according to Facilities Committee Chair Robert LeBlanc.

Three firms were invited for interviews, though seven had toured the district and expressed interest in future projects.

Those firms included BCA, C2AE, LaBella, March, SEI and Tetra Tech, he said.

LeBlanc said the committee would conduct interviews Monday and Tuesday, with a decision expected to follow shortly after.

The interviews follow a request for proposal of services that was put out by the district earlier this year. The proposal included design and management aspects related to future construction projects, school officials previously said.

This will be the first capital project the school has undertaken since solicitation of services began in the fall of 2018, at which time IBI Group was selected to undertake the recently completed $49.6 million capital improvement project.

Voters will head to the polls in just a few weeks to approve the district budget, which includes a capital outlay project.

Superintendent Ron Burke told board members recently that the project will continue to update the air conditioning, heating and ventilation controls at the high school.

“I believe it will be the final phase of switching over our HVAC control system here at the high school. We should have phase two complete here in the next month, month-and-a-half. What we’re doing is we’re switching over from the Siemens control which is no longer supported. This third phase will get us completely switched over in the high school to the new system," Burke said.

Each year, voters in the district have the opportunity to approve capital outlay project funding, which is $100,000 each year.

Projects covered under the fund do not go through the same process as the much larger capital projects that are approved by voters and typically come in the form of small maintenance projects throughout the district.

All funds allocated for capital outlay projects must be spent by the end of the fiscal year, officials say.