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.

“It’s a really significantly different site,” Evergreen Public Schools spokeswoman Gail Spolar said. “It 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.”

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.

“It’s a little challenging because we have the wetland that’s all part of it,” Emerick Construction project manager Alicia LaManna said. “So, 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.”

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.

“The export from 22 – it was quality material,” said Dan Bodell, a project manager with R&C Management Group. “We 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.”

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.

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

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

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Evergreen Public Schools in Vancouver, Washington, is putting to work $695 million of bond money approved by voters in February 2018. Dozens of school buildings are being renovated or replaced; one of the first is Sifton Elementary School, in Northeast Vancouver.

General contractor Pence Construction is tackling the $38 million project to replace an existing school built in 1958. The new, two-story, 62,000-square-foot Sifton Elementary will be the first of multiple new schools produced from a prototype design by LSW Architects.

Construction crews broke ground in April. These days, large glulam structural members are being erected for the gymnasium and auditorium, and exterior and interior walls are being framed. Soon, other tradespeople will arrive on site to begin rough-in work, but right now framers are working to get the building roofed and dried in before weather becomes harsher.

Wood framing is being used for the new school.

“It was a judgment call that we made early on in the design process,” R&C Management Group senior project manager Dan Bodell said. “Two years ago, construction costs were going nuts. Now, it’s not the same month-to-month creep that was going on; it’s a little more like a three-percent-a-year kind of cost creep. But we had to think: What can we do in the bones of the building to save money? And that’s why we went to wood framing.”

Crews with Salem-based DSL Builders are framing interior walls away from the main building and using a crane to fly them into place.

“Everybody will do some level of pre-fabbing,” Bodell said. “But here it’s all being done on site. At PS 22 they’re framing them in place and standing them up – not building them 100 feet away and swinging them into place. It’s just about different styles.”

“PS 22” is a new school, not yet named, being built by general contractor Triplett Wellman Contractors on Northeast 162nd Avenue. Meanwhile, a replacement for the existing Image Elementary School is being built by Emerick Construction on Northeast 131st Avenue. All three project teams are expected to finish their work by summer 2020, in time for the facilities to open for the 2020-21 school year.

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The path to construction of a new Sifton Elementary School in Vancouver, Washington, actually started with a massive fire.

That 2013 blaze may have destroyed Crestline Elementary School, but the process to replace the building led Evergreen Public Schools officials to select a prototype by LSW Architects. The new school opened barely 18 months later and featured a design that could be used in the future.

Fast-forward to 2018, when voters approved a $695 million capital bond measure – a sizable amount of it for six new elementary schools. Naturally, officials referred to the Crestline project when beginning the new ones, including Sifton.

“It was great because we already had the prototypical design,” said Gail Spolar, communications director for the school district.

Pence Construction is serving as the construction manager and general contractor for the Sifton project, which was designed by LSW Architects. Also, R&C Management Group is handling project management duties.

The original Sifton Elementary School, at 7301 N.E. 137th Ave., was built in 1958 as a single-story structure largely with a slab-on-grade foundation and concrete masonry unit (CMU) walls. The replacement structure, with a different footprint on the same property, will feature wood framing over a slab-on-grade foundation. Exposed glulam beams will be used for both practical and aesthetic reasons.

“There are not a lot of exotics in the design itself,” R&C Management Group project manager Dan Bodell said. “There are some design concepts that are more about the teaching methods, but as far as the structure itself we have a one-story gym with administrative on the front and then a two-story classroom wing and the nice views of (Mount Hood).”

Although the Crestline design was the basis for the new Sifton facility, improvements have been made, according to Sue Steinbrenner, Evergreen Public Schools’ director of facilities.

“Our other prototype really had the media (center) self-contained within its own room,” she said. “So we put the libraries here front and center so you have to walk through it, which is ironically how a lot of our buildings from the 1970s are.

“It’s about being sensitive to noise issues and having spaces for the students to break out and choose how to interact,” she added. “The other big difference is splitting the commons from the gym so we can use the gym for after-hours activities and close down the academic wing and make it more about the community partnership.”

The new Sifton school will have a capacity of 550 students. A single-story wing will hold the gymnasium and administrative space, along with the media center and commons. A learning stair in the commons area will serve as the bridge to the two-story classroom wing. Outside, a playground area and a soccer field will be built.

The district’s bond program calls for construction to take place through 2025. Currently, three new elementary schools are being built: replacements for Sifton and Image, and a completely new one not yet named.

One advantage of using the same design prototype on those projects, Bodell said, is that representatives of the three general contractors involved – Pence Construction, Emerick Construction and Triplett Wellman Contractors – are meeting regularly to discuss progress and go over any possible hiccups.

“Sifton is a month ahead of the other two and these guys have the most learning curve,” Bodell said. “But they can pass that information on to others. We’re pretty happy – from the R&C standpoint, there’s been great support from the district.”

All three schools under construction are scheduled for delivery in time for the start of the 2020-21 school year.

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School construction will be taking place in Vancouver, Washington, for years to come.

In February 2017, voters approved a $458 million bond measure for Vancouver Public Schools. One year later, voters approved a $695 million bond measure for the city’s other school district – Evergreen Public Schools.

On Northeast 42nd Avenue, crews are working on one of the Vancouver Public Schools projects – a replacement for Truman Elementary. General contractor Todd Construction is overseeing the effort to erect a two-story building designed by Bassetti Architects. The new school will sit on the same property as the existing one, but in a different location.

Crews broke ground in January, and work has proceeded quickly. Ironworkers from several companies are erecting structural steel and laying rebar for foundation slabs, while Todd Construction self-performs carpentry.

“We’ve got some of the slab-on-grade foundation down and we’ve started the first section of structural steel,” Todd Construction superintendent Monte Carothers said at the project site last week. “There’s plumbing, electrical underground – everything to do with the foundation. And then as you can see, the ironworkers are there. Next week we’ll have the drywall contractor on-site and he’ll be starting his metal framing in that area.”

Additional slab-on-grade concrete and structural steel work is scheduled, Carothers added.

“The following week we’ll be going vertical in that same area out there,” he said. “It’s fun. Especially when you get to the stage where you’re pouring slabs, it starts changing fairly quickly.”

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Southwest Washington is abuzz with school construction.

Vancouver Public Schools, for instance, has under way multiple projects being for with money from a $458 million bond measure passed by voters in 2017.

On the Washington State University-Vancouver campus, crews are building new space for iTech Preparatory – a STEM (science, technology, engineering and math)-focused magnet school that serves students throughout the district. The school, which opened in 2012, has students in grades 6 through 12; middle school pupils currently attend classes in district administration offices while high school students occupy a leased building on the WSU campus.

“We’ve never had a facility where we could house all the grades at one location,” said Todd Horenstein, an assistant superintendent and director of facility support services for Vancouver Public Schools.

The new building will have approximately 80,000 square feet of space over three stories and be able to serve up to 700 students. LSW Architects of Vancouver designed the facility, which is being built by Hillsboro general contractor Robinson Construction.

The project’s budget is around $30 million, Horenstein said. The building is being constructed to Washington Sustainable Schools Protocol, an energy efficiency process with standards roughly akin to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design silver, he added.

Currently, site work is under way at one end of the iTech Preparatory site. Meanwhile, ironworkers and carpenters are building formwork and installing rebar in preparation for concrete slab foundation and footer pours.

On Northeast 28th Street in Vancouver, ground was broken this past summer on a replacement for Peter S. Ogden Elementary School. LSW Architects and Robinson Construction are handling this project as well.

The two-story building will be wood-framed over slab-on-grade foundations. It will be able to accommodate as many as about 500 students.

Foundation work already is complete. Currently, first-floor walls, both on the interior and exterior, are being built and placed by crews from DSL Framing.

Meanwhile, on MacArthur Boulevard, two schools are being built anew. Marshall Elementary School and McLoughlin Middle School will be constructed as a single two-story structure on open land between existing facilities.

The two schools will be physically connected by a shared kitchen and mechanical space, as well as a media center able to be partitioned. However, each school will function separately, Horenstein said.

LSW Architects designed this project too, but Skanska USA Building is the general contractor for this project. Currently, crews from Tapani Underground, Skanska and Prairie Electric are carrying out site work, underground utility installation and form work for upcoming foundation concrete pours.

Instead of standard steel or wood framing, however, cross-laminated timber structural elements will be used atop a concrete foundation. This will be one of the first educational buildings in the Portland-metro area to feature such construction.

Evergreen Public Schools, another school district in Vancouver, also has projects on tap. Voters in February approved a $695 million bond measure. Numerous construction projects totaling more than $800 million will be completed by 2024, according to the district’s website.

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A $695 million bond measure to pay for construction of nine schools for Evergreen Public Schools has passed, according to preliminary election results in Washington.

Approximately 61 percent of voters approved the bond measure, according to the Clark County Elections office. In Washington, a 60 percent supermajority is required to pass school bonds.

The general obligation bonds will fund construction of a new elementary school and replacements for five elementary schools, a middle school and two high schools with new buildings at existing campuses. Other schools will receive various renovations and improvements.

“The voters have placed great confidence in the district by approving the largest bond in the community’s history,” Evergreen Public Schools Board President Todd Yuzuriha stated in a news release. “When combined with anticipated state matching funds and locally collected impact fees, more than $800 million in school projects will be completed over the next six years. Thank you to the community for your incredible support.”

The Evergreen Public Schools projects are scheduled to be completed by 2024. LSW Architects of Vancouver is serving as design consultant.

Two other major school district bonds were on Tuesday’s ballot in Clark County. La Center School District voters comfortably approved a $48 million bond measure for construction of a new middle school, conversion of the existing La Center Middle School into an elementary school and land acquisition. The bond passed with 65.61 percent of votes in favor.

However, Battle Ground voters rejected a $225 million bond measure that would have funded construction of six schools as well as other renovations and improvements to accommodate growth. With only 58.34 percent of votes in favor, the supermajority requirement was not met.

Final results will be certified on Feb. 23.

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