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Multiple school construction projects are under way in Vancouver, Washington, for Evergreen Public Schools. The district last year gained voters’ approval for a $695 million bond, and money is being put to work.

One of the projects under way is a replacement for Image Elementary School. General contractor Emerick Construction is building the school on a parcel of former farmland near the intersection of Northeast 131st Avenue and 52nd Street.

鈥淚t’s a really significantly different site,鈥� Evergreen Public Schools spokeswoman Gail Spolar said. 鈥淚t doesn’t have a school on it, but (crews) have had some interesting things to take care of (on the site) before they started constructing the new school.鈥�

LSW Architects‘ design for the two-story, approximately 62,000-square-foot facility calls for use of mass-timber structural elements, including glulam beams and columns. Laminated veneer lumber will be used extensively in the framing.

An open interior design will allow for tall ceilings, large learning stairs and a media center. The gymnasium and family resource center will be isolated from the rest of the school to allow for public use.

Excavation and site work began in June.

鈥淚t’s a little challenging because we have the wetland that’s all part of it,鈥� Emerick Construction project manager Alicia LaManna said. 鈥淪o, the soil makeup underneath the site is quite interesting in how it’s been filled in over the decades of being a farmland. We had quite a lot of excavation that we had to do before we could even start the foundations.鈥�

In addition to excavation, however, plenty of fill was required to level off the site before construction could take place. Fortunately, there was a ready supply available from excavation taking place for a new elementary school (not yet named) being built on Northeast 162nd Avenue between 39th and 43rd streets.

鈥淭he export from 22 鈥� it was quality material,鈥� said Dan Bodell, a project manager with R&C Management Group. 鈥淲e also ended up taking dirt from underneath the building here and we were able to use it elsewhere on this site, and we went ahead and rearranged all of that. And then we brought this other material in to bring the whole site up.鈥�

As a result, much of the site has been raised. Also, extensive groundwater required construction of a massive stormwater retention chamber on the east side of the site. Multiple temporary wells were used to pump out groundwater during excavation for the slab-on-grade foundation.

鈥淓verything has been brought up four or five feet so that we weren’t down in the wet,鈥� Bodell said. 鈥淎nd that goes back to all the engineering that goes into handling the rainwater 鈥� making sure we’re not flooding (adjacent residences) when the rains come because all of a sudden you have a hard surface here.鈥�

After the new Image Elementary School opens (fall 2020 is the target date), the existing one 鈥� near the intersection of Northeast 122nd Avenue and 44th Street 鈥� will serve as a temporary facility on a rotating basis for other schools being replaced by new ones on their current properties.