Due to massive price increases because of COVID-19 Park has had to cancel its planned kitchen renovations.

Building manager James Langevin said kitchen renovations are on the high priority list but he was shocked to see the price of building materials spike due to COVID-19. 

“We’ve seen steel almost triple in price in the last three years … you can’t calculate for a pandemic like this,” Langevin said.

Sophomore Javier Schimming said he felt disappointed that the kitchen renovations were cancelled. Schimming said he’s upset over how the middle school was able to be renovated, but not the high school.

“That’s that’s kind of dumb because I’ve been past the middle school a lot, because I live right by there, and the middle school looks really nice now — it looks like they spent a ton of money on it,” Schimming said. “The middle school didn’t need that much. And we need a kitchen.”

Finance manager Patricia Magnuson said she thought she was prepared but was baffled by the sudden price increase. The pandemic has made it much more difficult to renovate, and costs to make a new kitchen have skyrocketed because the materials are much harder to get. 

“We were prepared to be having a temporary kitchen situation for this fall and we went out to bid for the last parts of the project,” Magnuson said. “Then, several things happened in the construction world, mostly COVID(-19) related.”

Kitchen renovations won’t just make the food better, it will also speed the lines up as junior Emma Samuels said she feels unsafe with how cramped and long the lines are.

“Since it’s after the pandemic, I would think that it would be better if it was a bigger lunchroom because the lines are so long and it feels kind of unsafe,” Samuels said.