Historic School Renovations Connect Students to the Past, Prepare Them for the Future

By Amy Rose Davis

School districts in the Northwest, always being tested to find room for expanding enrollment, are finding the best answers in historic renovations.

But renovations bring with them unique budget, time and construction issues.

"It would have cost less for us to build a new building, but in this community, Stadium High School has a legacy that goes back decades. It's part of our fabric," said Leanna Albrecht, Community Relations Coordinator for Tacoma Public Schools. The district is currently renovating Stadium in a project that won the Outstanding Achievement in Historic Preservation award from the city of Tacoma. The project budget is $105 million.

Schedule challenges are common when dealing with century-old structures. "We typically allow about two months float time on one of these historic renovations," said Don Gillmore, Building Excellence Project Manager for Seattle Public Schools. "We also allow about a 10 to 15 percent construction contingency. With buildings this old, we run into little things all the time - crumbling concrete, bricks falling out of walls, rotting wood. Every time you find something new, it's a change order and schedule change."

Construction problems can also arise. Aside from obvious issues with newer seismic codes and asbestos abatement, some schools have been added to and remodeled several times over the decades, often with little documentation and dissimilar construction techniques and quality. Here is a look at some of the ongoing school renovations in the region.

International School of Beaverton, Ore

Built in 1913, the original Aloha Huber Park School was a four-classroom school built on land donated by the Huber family of Beaverton specifically for a school structure. Over the course of decades, as schools consolidated and the Beaverton School District was eventually founded in the 70s, the school had been added to and renovated several times.

In 2005, the district began a two-phase project to renovate the school building and create the International School of Beaverton - a school based on the International Baccalaureate Middle Years program popular in Europe. The program is a standardized worldwide curriculum enhanced with world languages including Chinese, Japanese, and Spanish; students are required to do rigorous individual research projects and participate in community service projects. The program prepares students to go through the secondary Diploma Program that provides intense study in pre-university courses.

Phase one, completed in March, added a new cafeteria and office area. The budget was $6 million. The architect was Fletcher Farr Ayotte of Portland, and the general contractor was Lease Crutcher Lewis of Portland.

Phase two is currently under way with a budget of $2 million. It will finish upgrade work in the building, convert a modular building into a science wing and convert the former library and classrooms into a computer lab. Barrantine Bates Lee of Portland is the architect on phase two, and Lease Crutcher Lewis is the general contractor.

advertisement

Leslie Imes, project manager with the Beaverton School District, who is overseeing the project, said: "This particular school has been very well kept up, so it made sense financially to renovate it. It's also one of our largest sites in the district, and so it has the capacity to expand as the program and district grow."

The interior of the school is decorated in bright, stimulating colors, Imes said. "It has a 'Pacific Rim' feel to the décor," she added. "The colors aren't those we'd normally use in a school, but because of the international focus of the curriculum, it's appropriate."

The school is set to open this fall.

Stadium High School, Tacoma

Begun as a hotel in 1893, the Stadium High School "castle" has been a beloved icon of Tacoma for more than 100 years. In 1902, the city of Tacoma bought the unfinished hotel building for use as a school, and Stadium opened in 1906.

The current $105 million remodel/addition project at Stadium High School began in summer 2004. The project will focus on modernizing the main castle building, but it includes the purchase of adjacent property for the purpose of building a new performing arts center and gymnasium complex.

Krei Architecture of Tacoma is the architect on the project; Skanska USA of Seattle is the general contractor.

"The building needed a seismic upgrade which required purchasing 400 tons of steel for temporary shoring," said Pete Wall, Director, Facilities Planning and Construction, Tacoma Public Schools.

One goal of the project was to increase classroom size. "The net effect is about seven or eight more classrooms, but primarily, we've increased the size of classrooms through combining and reconfiguring some things," Wall said. "We've also modernized all of the classrooms to include data drops, SMART Boards (interactive white board technology) and projection screens." SMART Board technology allows teachers to write or draw notes that can be saved directly to a disk as a screen shot and then e-mailed or printed for student use.

The school is set to reopen in the fall.

Garfield High School, Seattle

Construction began in July at Garfield High School, the latest in a series of historic school renovation projects undertaken by the Seattle School District. The original building was constructed in 1923, and additions were made in 1929 and 1963.

Project plans include renovating the original structure, demolishing the additions and building a new performing arts center and gymnasium. Burr Lawrence Rising Bates Architects of Tacoma is the architect; Lease Crutcher Lewis is the general contractor.

The budget for the project is approximately $80 million and is part of the $398 million Building Excellence Levy approved by voters in February 2001. The levy also provided funds for renovations and restorations at Roosevelt and Cleveland high schools and Madison Middle School, among others.

"These older buildings, the ones from the 20s, are built very well overall," Gillmore said. "The district put a lot of money into them back then and took their time making sure they would last. There are codes now that we need to bring the schools up to, but the structures overall are sound."

The Garfield project includes a complete renovation of the interior of the building, including updating many of the classrooms with Smart Board technology and wireless microphones for teachers. "These new wireless systems can reduce throat infections in teachers by up to 50 percent," Gillmore added. "Teachers don't have to strain, and the students can all hear everything that's said."

Completion is scheduled for 2008.