Updates about the planned construction of the new Pilgrim and Toll Gate high schools will be shared at a special School Committee meeting at Warwick Veterans Middle School on Tuesday, Jan. 28 at 6 p.m.

The meeting, according to School Committee Chair Shaun Galligan, will be structured differently from regular School Committee meetings to allow members of the public to ask questions directly to a panel including multiple experts on the project.

“I want to make sure that we’re bringing the public along on something so historical and polarizing for the city of Warwick here,” Galligan said. “This is being positioned as a forum, so without a doubt the public will be able to ask questions during the upcoming meeting.”

In addition to the School Committee, Galligan said that representatives from LeftField Project Management, construction managers Dimeo Construction, and architectural firms Saccoccio & Associates Architects and Saam Architecture will be present to help answer questions throughout the meeting.

This will be the third special meeting, following one held in August to give the public a first look at plans for the schools and one in October following news that cost projections for the two buildings had exceeded the $350 million approved by voters.

LeftField, Galligan said, had no hard numbers at the moment, but the expectation was that the cost would be lower than the $387.8 million most recently projected by the company.

“In August, we were looking at a good project from a financial perspective,” Galligan said. “In October, it became somewhat unfavorable. But here in January, I believe the project is trending in the right direction.”

The closer it gets to groundbreaking, Galligan said, the more accurate LeftField’s financial numbers will become as more and more details of the project are finalized. Currently, groundbreaking for both schools is expected for late April or early May, which LeftField reported at December’s regular school committee meeting.

Galligan also expects up-to-date designs and layouts of each building to be shown at the meeting. During last week’s regular School Committee meeting, LeftField’s John Bates said that the Toll Gate’s design had to be slightly reconfigured in order to get a variance from the Department of Environmental Management, as opposed to the more extensive review which would cause delays of up to a year for the project that the DEM said that the original design would need.

Toll Gate, Galligan said, is expected to be behind Pilgrim throughout the construction process.

“We always knew that Toll Gate was going to be a slightly more complex project than Pilgrim, and that’s why the projects are staggered the way they are,” Galligan said. “So for the remainder of this project, people should assume that Toll Gate’s project will be somewhere between four to six weeks behind Pilgrim’s.”

As the date for the groundbreaking of both schools gets closer, Galligan said that making sure the public was kept up to date about the planned construction was a top priority.

More special meetings will likely be held, Galligan said, until ground is broken on the buildings.

“When construction gets going, I don’t really see a need for us to maintain bimonthly meetings. Maybe we look at quarterly, or maybe one every six months,” Galligan said. “During construction, it would be ‘We dug some holes’ or ‘We poured some concrete’ and that will be the update. We’re not going to see progress really quickly based on the size of these buildings, so the more frequent updates won’t be necessary once construction gets going.”

Warwick Public Schools has a dedicated website for project updates on both high schools, which can be found at warwickhsprojects.com.