‘San Vicente community will benefit from SVES Cafetorium’

All of San Vicente will benefit when the San Vicente Elementary School’s newly constructed Cafetorium is finally opened for the school and community this month.

According to Public School System Federal Programs advisor Tim Thornburgh not only will the school children benefit from the new building, but also the entire San Vicente community.

Thornburgh told Saipan Tribune last week that the SVES Cafetorium, a cafeteria and auditorium in one building, would have its grand opening ceremony in weeks’ time this month assuming “all goes well.”

He added that there are few “electrical wiring” tasks and testing of all equipment inside the Cafetorium. “This will be the final phase for the project,” he said, adding that once completed, a grand opening would be immediately arranged.

“We are looking forward to getting this done for the entire San Vicente community can benefit from it,” Thornburgh said.

The elementary school will end this school year on a happy note, with construction work on its Cafetorium now complete and ready for turn over to the school.

Thornburgh said the current cafeteria would be converted into another classroom since its size could contain one class. He said as soon as the new building is officially opened, the school would transfer one class to the old cafeteria.

SVES principal Jim Rayphand earlier said that the contractor of the project would turn it over to his school this month.

Rayphand said there would be a grand opening ceremony for the Cafetorium soon. The new building will be used to hold in-house school presentations and for serving hot lunches.

The contractor had initially made slow progress because they could only work from 3pm to 6pm daily to avoid distracting the school’s operations. Last summer, the contractor had more time to work on the project.

In December 2005, the Board of Education and the Public School System led the groundbreaking ceremony for the project, which entails building a 5,600-square-foot cafeteria and auditorium within the SVES compound. A cafeteria and auditorium in one, the Cafetorium project was awarded to AIC Marianas.

The Cafetorium is a federally funded project that was awarded to PSS in November 2004. The project cost was estimated to be a little over $935,000. Official construction started on Jan. 3 this year.

The new cafeteria, which would also serve as a multi-purpose building that could host large meetings of up to 500 persons, used the Kagman Elementary School Cafeteria/Multi-Purpose Building design.

The new cafeteria will have central air-conditioning, an elevated stage, a dining area of 3,500 square feet, a scullery, food preparation and warming area, office, bathrooms, electrical room, and lots of storage areas.

PSS officials noted that this would most probably be the very last construction project at SVES as there is no other space for buildings unless the baseball field is sacrificed for future classroom expansion.