A $408 million bond for Hillsboro School District, approved by voters in November 2017, is fueling construction of two new elementary schools, one replacement elementary school, and renovations/expansions of two high schools.

One of the latter is for Glencoe High School, which opened in 1980. BLRB Architects designed a project – estimated to cost $31.3 million – that will add more than 30,500 square feet of space to the campus so that enrollment can grow as expected. Pence Construction is serving as general contractor.

“The existing campus is from the early ’80s, and this is one of four additions being added here,” Pence Construction project manager Adam Rondeau said as he pointed to one new building. “We’re calling this Building 2; it’s a cafeteria and an eating hall. There’s no kitchen facilities per se, but it will add space.”

The cafeteria even features a structural steel beam signed by students and staff. It was erected during a September ceremony attended by the entire school.

“We’re filling in the gap between the cafeteria and the existing building with this added eating hall,” Rondeau said. “The capacity is about 400 and that matches the capacity we’re adding to the school with the additional classrooms, which is about a dozen additional classrooms in all.”

A 23,000-square-foot wing being added to the front of the school will hold a new media center, health science classrooms and a lab, counseling staff offices and conference rooms. Also, the main entrance has been redesigned: Access into the building will now come via a new, locked vestibule.

In an earlier phase, existing career and technical education classrooms were redesigned and improved. At the same time, the south parking lot reserved for staff and visitors was rebuilt with a new circulation pattern and a new shelter for students waiting to board buses. These improvements were completed over the summer. A similar upgrade is planned for the north student parking lot next summer.

Any remaining tenant improvements and interior work also is expected to wrap up during summer 2020.

“All four of the building additions are under way now,” Rondeau said. “We have a new entry/media building, and if you come in through the south parking lot you probably saw the big new building with the DensGlass. That’s going to be the biggest of the four additions.”

Finally, the school’s athletic teams will get a new weight training facility and a new team room. Both will be additions to an existing building.

“It’s going to more than double the space they have for their team training,” Rondeau said. “And then we have a team room, which is effectively another locker room being added.”

A similar renovation and expansion project – estimated to cost $27.2 million – is taking place at Hillsboro High School. There, crews began work in March and expect to finish by August 2020.

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These days, public education projects are helping drive the regional construction market. Hillsboro School District, for instance, is moving forward with a rash of projects via money from a $408 million bond approved by voters in 2017. Two new elementary schools are being built, another is being replaced, and a middle school and a high school are being expanded.

2019 is likely to be the busiest summer of the entire bond cycle, district bond marketing specialist Jane Siguenza said. One of this year’s projects is the expansion and refurbishment of Evergreen Middle School.

“It’s getting a media center addition with classrooms,” Siguenza said. “And there are interior classrooms also. The old library is being converted into six classrooms, and the cafeteria and commons area are getting changed also. The reason why we’re doing this project is because of the growth in this attendance area, so it’s going to accommodate 200 more students.”

Evergreen was built in 1981. Despite several expansions, the school has never stayed ahead of steady population growth in Washington County. So, in addition to a new, 18,000-square-foot addition housing a media center and library, classrooms will be added in a new wing on the school’s south side.

Also, the school is gaining new roofing, HVAC equipment, security equipment and furniture. Seismic upgrades will be carried out as well. P&C Construction is serving as the general contractor for the project, which was designed by Soderstrom Architects.

Ground was broken this past spring, and demolition started around that time. But large-scale work – including excavation and site work for the expansion – really only began in mid-June, after the school year ended.

Completion is anticipated for approximately Spring Break 2020.

“Teachers were still here Monday, so our first day of hitting it hard and heavy was Tuesday,” site superintendent Michael Fry said. “We actually did an early start on Saturday, came in and demoed all the ceilings while the teachers weren’t here. The staff and admin here have been amazing, though; they’ve been great to work with.”

The addition will be constructed using primarily concrete tilt panels, Fry said. On the interior, however, a structural composite lumber product, laminated veneer lumber (LVL), will be used around the building perimeter as a means of increasing shear wall strength and seismic support for the building’s structural steel and glulam framework.

“It’s a fairly standard tilt-up addition,” Fry said. “It’s always interesting tying a tilt-up into an existing building, but everything’s pretty standard. It’s structural steel with glulams holding up the roof.”

LVL beams are used for a number of applications, but in this case in combination with glulams as an outer tension lam to increase the overall strength of the glulam beam.

To accommodate the expansion, some classrooms will be removed from the existing building and replaced by new glulams and structural steel. Engineers even managed to simplify the usual methods of tying new expansions into existing structures, Fry added.

“Where the tilt-ups come in, shoring up this end of the roof here, there are no expansion joints,” he said. “They actually tied the buildings in together structurally.”

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General contractor Robinson Construction is seeking bids from subcontractors for all scopes of work involved with a new two-story, 41,000-square-foot building for the Hillsboro School District.

The transportation and support services facility will be located on Northwest Jacobson Road, slightly north of Liberty High School. The ground floor will hold six bus maintenance bays, shops for both maintenance and carpentry, driver-related facilities, and staff meeting rooms. The second floor will hold office space as well as educational space for the new diesel mechanic CTE (career and technical education) program.

Construction is scheduled to begin by June 2019, and finish in September 2020.

BBL Architects designed the project. Cornerstone Management Group is the owner’s representative; Rick Cunningham is the project manager. The project, which has a tentative budget of $18.3 million, is being paid for with money from a $408 million bond approved by voters in 2017.

All questions and bids may be emailed to bids@robcon.com. Prospective bidders also may call 503-844-1340 to learn more. Bids are due by 2 p.m. on March 5.

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The Hillsboro School District and general contractor Pence Construction are seeking a wide range of subcontractors to help build a new elementary school.

The existing Brookwood Elementary School is a single-story, 300-student-capacity facility on Southeast Cedar Street in central Hillsboro. The campus will be rebuilt as a new two-story, 600-student-capacity replacement elementary school with funds from a $408 million capital bond measure approved by voters in 2017.

Pence Construction is asking for subcontractors to bid on work that will cover virtually the project’s entire scope. The deadline for submissions is 2 p.m. on Dec. 11.

The estimated project cost is $41.9 million. Work is expected to finish by fall 2020. The building will have approximately 72,500 square feet.

The current design from DLR Group has “learning streets” that are centered between classrooms and feature coordinated colors to distinguish between grade levels. The gym and cafeteria are separate spaces, but can be combined into a single space, while a STEAM (Science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics) lab will feature both indoor and outdoor learning areas.

Construction is scheduled to start in June 2019, while the existing building will be demolished in summer 2020 so the rest of the site can be developed for the start of the school year.

To learn more, contact Ruchi Yadav at 503-252-3802 or ruchiy@lcgp.com.

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In 2017, voters in Portland-metro areas approved construction bonds totaling $2 billion for school districts. That same year, voters approved $500 million more for school construction projects in other parts of the state, including $268 million for Bend-LaPine Schools in Central Oregon.

When added to construction bond measures supported by voters in previous years – including $680 million for the Beaverton School District in 2014 – the total amount being invested in school projects now and in the near future is approximately $5 billion.

But the increasing complexity of educational facility projects coupled with concerns about a shortage of skilled workers has school district officials examining new ways to design, construct and even manage those projects. The days of winning a contract through straight low bid are fast disappearing and increasingly, school district bond administrators say, they’re looking for approaches – from construction manager-general contractor to pre-qualifications with requests for proposals – that best fit the specifics of individual projects.

Portland Community College, for example, was still finishing projects from an earlier bond when voters last year approved a new $185 million construction bond. Now PCC officials are looking at using some of that money to tackle its first design-build project: a 25,000-square-foot pre-apprenticeship center.

“This is a new thing for us, so we’ve been doing a lot of research,” Linda Degman, PCC’s bond program director, told an audience of 250 who gathered last week for the first event in a Builder Breakfast series being offered by the Daily Journal of Commerce in 2018.

The Beaverton School District already has tackled about half of the projects it plans to complete with the bond money that voters approved in 2014. But that still leaves about $300 million worth of work that needs to be done by 2022, Paul Odenthal, the school district’s executive administrator for facilities, said during the breakfast panel discussion.

“There are still some large nuggets out there,” he said.

Projects planned by the Beaverton School District for 2018 and 2019 include roof replacements and HVAC upgrades at several existing elementary and middle schools.

Aloha High School will be the site of a long list of projects this year and next. The school, along with Beaverton High School, is on tap to receive auditorium safety improvements. The Aloha building also is in line for a seismic upgrade, a first-phase roof replacement and a career technical education project. A career technical education project also is scheduled to take place at Westview High School in 2018-19.

One of the district’s biggest projects won’t begin until next year, when work is scheduled to begin to replace the Arts & Communication Magnet Academy. The project is slated for completion in 2021.

The district also is looking at more than 20 roof replacements on existing buildings. That work is expected to last through 2022.

Portland Public Schools also is finishing up projects from previously approved bond measures while gearing up to begin planning for yet another round of work that will be tackled with money from a $790 million bond that voters approved last year. That brought the total amount of money Portland Public Schools has for its capital improvement program to $1.4 billion, and includes $185 million for health and safety improvements ranging from roof replacements and lead paint abatement to water pipe replacements and sprinkler upgrades at existing schools.

Meanwhile, Hillsboro School District is gearing up to use the $405 million that voters approved last year to build two new schools, renovate several existing schools and address health and safety issues throughout district buildings.

“This bond will touch every one of our projects,” said Adam Stewart, capital projects officer for the Hillsboro School District.

While school districts may have specific project needs, there are some common threads when it comes to what they need prospective partners – from architectural firms to construction companies – to bring to the table.

While having a range of projects at various stages has always posed challenges when it comes to scheduling and coordinating, the current shortage of skilled labor as baby boomers retire poses an additional hurdle.

“The challenge right now is to make sure we have coverage for all of our projects,” Stewart said.

The time when school grounds and campuses aren’t occupied also is growing increasingly shorter. That means that safety and flexibility, already important skills for project team members to bring to the table, will become even more important in district hiring decisions when it comes to awarding contracts.

District representatives across the board said they’re examining the best ways to bundle smaller bond-funded projects in a way that will allow a large number of companies to participate while still making the packages financially worthwhile for contractors.

“That work is hard to know how to package, so we’re looking for input and suggestions,” Jung said.

The amount of money available for local school construction projects may grow even more later this month. Three Washington state school districts have placed bond measures on the ballot for a Feb. 13 special election. Evergreen School District, in Vancouver, Washington, is asking its voters to support a $695 million school construction bond, while Battle Ground School District is looking for voter approval of a $224.9 million bond measure and La Center School District is pursuing a $48 million bond measure.

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With more than $1.5 billion in school construction bonds approved by voters in the Portland metro area in the past year, and the potential for more than $1 billion in additional projects if voters in the Battle Ground and Evergreen school districts in Washington approve two bond measures in February, the education construction market is expected to be hot for local building and design professionals for years to come.

With an eye toward helping local firms in the building industry tap into those opportunities, the Daily Journal of Commerce will kick off a new Builder Breakfast series with a Jan. 31 event. This one, on tap from 7:15 to 9 a.m. at the Sentinel in downtown Portland, will focus on the specific upcoming work opportunities for design and building professionals, as well as suppliers, via several local area school bonds.

The format will feature a panel discussion. Panelists will include:

• Dan Jung, senior director of Portland Public Schools‘ Office of School Modernization ($790 million health, safety and modernization bond passed in May 2017)
• Adam Stewart, chief financial officer and capital projects officer, Hillsboro School District ($408 million capital construction bond passed in November 2017)
• Linda Degman, bond director, Portland Community College ($185 million workforce training center bond passed in November 2017)

Panelists will discuss the types of work they expect will be available, how to find more information on specific projects, what is required of firms to qualify for work on these projects and best practices to obtain and successfully complete education construction work.

The panel discussion is part of the Daily Journal of Commerce’s new quarterly Builder Breakfast series. The event will include networking opportunities, breakfast and a discussion on specific upcoming work opportunities. The cost to attend is $25, or $225 for a table of 10.

Registration is available online at djcoregon.com/builder-breakfast/.

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The Hillsboro School District plans to ask general election voters in November to support a $408 million construction bond to upgrade its building stock.

The district on Aug. 2 published a request for proposals for architectural services, and will interview candidates later this month.

If passed, the bond would fund three new elementary schools; heavy remodels of two high schools and a middle school; and seismic, MEP and roof upgrades at every other district school.

Hillsboro School District is the fourth-largest school district in Oregon with 21,000 students across 25 elementary, four middle and five high schools. The average age of a school building in the district is approximately 40 years old.

District voters approved construction bonds in 1995, 1999 and 2006; a 2013 campaign for a $25 million safety and technology bond was unsuccessful.

While the 20-year bond’s scope won’t cover all of the district’s needs, the $408 million amount was chosen because it would allow the district to maintain its current bond rate of $2.24 per $1,000 of assessed value, Adam Stewart, the school district’s chief financial officer, said.

“A big selling point for our community is that we can do all these wonderful things and not have to raise our tax rate for bonded indebtedness,” Stewart said.

Stewart said the district intends to file paperwork with the Washington County Elections office before the Sept. 7 deadline in order to make the Nov. 7 ballot.

A spokesperson for the Oregon Secretary of State’s office said no school districts in Oregon have yet filed bond measures for the ballot.

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