Erin Aichler of Hoffman Architects, right, and Town Facilities Commission chair Al Kelly explain the scope of the Fairfield Warde roof project Wednesday.

Photo Credit: Greg Canuel

Fairfield Warde High School has 56 individual roof sections, most of which are more than 20 years old.

Photo Credit: Greg Canuel

FAIRFIELD, Conn. – The price tag for Fairfield Warde High School’s new roof is in: The four-year project to replace the leaky 20-year-old cap will cost $11 million. Town Facilities Commission chair Al Kelly and Hoffman Architects’ Erin Aichler delivered the news to the Board of Selectmen on Wednesday.

The roofs on Fairfield Warde date to 1991. Their warranties expired in 2006 and have had problems with leaks since then. The district’s maintenance tracking system lists more than 185 leaks in the school over the past 12 months, said Sal Morabito, the school district’s director of construction.

“We fix them, and we respond to them,” Morabito said of the leaks. “But they happen frequently.”

The Board of Education first pitched the idea of a new roof at Warde in November 2010. Since then, the school district and the Town Facilities Commission have been working with Hoffman Architects and Dahill Construction to get estimates.

The figure the groups came up with was $45 per square foot, for a total of up to $11 million. Fiscal Officer Paul Hiller said Wednesday that he would work with Fairfield’s state representatives to get state grants, but the town was not planning for those to come. “We’re going to give it a shot,” Hiller said.

The town’s plan is to fix the school’s 56 individual roofs over the next four summers. The town will replace the sections over the library, the administrative offices, the auditorium and the cafeteria first.

“These are the areas that have the most prominent leaks currently,” said Aichler, the project manager from Hoffman Architects.

The gymnasium and locker room roofs will be replaced in the summer of 2013. The next year the roof would be done at Pequot House and the Early Childhood Center classrooms. Townsend and Fitts houses would be the last to get new roofs, in 2015.

The Board of Selectmen approved the funding unanimously Wednesday night. The Board of Finance and the Representative Town Meeting still need to approve the project before Cullen’s team can begin work. Both boards are scheduled to vote later this month. If the project is approved, work will start as early as June.