BY MATTHEW E. MILLIKEN

mmilliken@heraldsun.com; 419-6684

DURHAM -- A revised window-replacement scheme at the Fuller Building won unanimous approval from the Historic Preservation Commission on Tuesday morning.

The go-ahead means that work at the Durham public school system's headquarters building will likely resume in January, a year after it originally was scheduled to begin.

"It's probably the correction we should have taken initially," Tim Carr, the district's construction and capital planning program director, said after the commission vote.

"We're back on course."

The project began the year $3,400 over budget, and remained so as of June 30, according to the last quarterly construction report the school system has posted on its Web site. Manufacturing redesigned replacement windows will probably cost $80,000 to $120,000; the process could be complete by year's end.

The cost overruns will likely be covered by transfers of unused money from other projects in the $105.6 million bond that voters approved in 2003, Carr said. County commissioners approval is needed for such transfers, he noted.

A June 30 report shows nearly $2.2 million in available funds from that bond. About half of that represents land-purchase funds that went unspent after the donation of property north of Snow Hill Road for the so-called new Middle School B project. Other savings come from low bids generated by an economic recession that has made contractors hungry for work, Carr said.

The Fuller Building, a former school, is at 511 Cleveland St. It was built in 1937 and expanded in 1964. The window replacements are intended to cut down on heating and air-conditioning costs and to increase comfort for those in the building.

Previously manufactured windows that the district had intended to install at Fuller have been put in storage, Carr said. They will be used for a yet-to-be-determined project in the 2007 bond.

A contractor began installing those windows in March, but the City-County Planning Department soon halted the work because there was no building permit for the project and because the certificate of appropriateness needed for renovations in the city's downtown historic district had not been obtained.

The Historic Preservation Commission met three times to discuss the Fuller project before voting in May to freeze the project. The district contemplated an appeal before opting to redesign the windows.

The new aluminum windows -- there will be two types -- will match the appearance of the those installed in the 1937 original structure and the 1964 addition. That means 24 panes arranged in a 12-over-12 grid for the older building and 20 panes in an 8-over-12 grid for the expansion.

Windows divided only horizontally were originally slated to be installed. They were also differently proportioned from what they were replacing.

The new windows will return to the existing proportions. To accommodate lowered ceilings, the district will black out the tops of a number of the new windows.

The project scope is changing slightly. Two door replacements that were once part of it are being dropped, Carr said.