In downtown Beaverton, the rise of a three-story, 300,500-square-foot high school is hard to miss.

Structures are taking shape, and Skanska USA Building managers and district officials said the new Beaverton High School is scheduled to open in August 2026. The project is expected to cost $253 million (as budgeted) including soft costs, with $221 million of that for direct construction.

The new school is next to the existing one, portions of which date to 1916. At some locations, the new structure is as near as 14 feet to the existing one.

Skanska is serving as the construction manager/general contractor for the project designed by Portland’s BRIC Architecture. About 220 workers labor on site each day.

“Things are clipping right along and looking good for opening next fall,” said Troy Boardman, senior superintendent for Skanska.

The new Beaverton High School will have three stories to host about 1,500 students. Given a limited footprint, designers had no choice but to go vertical.

“We had to make it three stories to meet the capacity requirements,” said Jeffrey Hamman, senior project manager for Beaverton School District.

The project is funded by a 2022 bond approved by voters. Of Beaverton School District’s 54 schools, the high school was most in need of an update, officials said, along with Raleigh Hills Elementary, which is also being rebuilt. Both schools are considered seismically vulnerable.

“A community priority was having a building that’s resilient,” said Aaron Boyle, facilities division manager for Beaverton School District.

Beaverton High is being built to Risk Category IV standards under the International Building Code, meaning it’s designed to be functional immediately after an earthquake.

Essentially, there will be two separate buildings. A seismic joint will allow the structures to move in an earthquake, sliding in a 16-inch gap. Portions of the buildings also will use SidePlate connection systems for resiliency.

Only the cafeteria, built in 2004, will be retained from the existing school. The cafeteria represents the district’s efforts to construct the new high school for “future readiness.” The cafeteria structure could be demolished in years to come in favor of a three-story building if growth drives enrollment well above today’s levels.

“We hope the way that we’ve constructed (the school) allows that flexibility,” Boyle said.

For today’s students, the new Beaverton High will feature 36 general education classrooms, eight science classrooms located in their own wing, three special-education classrooms, four career-and-technical education classrooms and two CTE labs. One classroom will be dedicated for three-dimensional art.

A two-story flex space will be available for a variety of uses. The theater will be wired for modern video and audio. A clinic operated by Virginia Garcia will provide health services to any student within the district.

A gym will have three full courts, an elevated one-eighth-mile track and capacity for 3,000 people to attend events. The gym will be framed by concrete panels that were formed on-site in pouring beds before being tilted up during a weekend with the help of a crane. Each panel weighs 220,000 pounds, Boardman said.

The new school frames a central, 15,500-square-foot courtyard. Walker Macy is the landscape architect for the project.

School entrances and exits will be strictly controlled, district officials said. The new school has no entrances along Southwest Farmington Road, a major thoroughfare.

The project team has had to work around Beaverton High’s busy events schedule while ensuring school staff and students are kept apart from construction activities.

“That has been the biggest challenge,” said Trevor Wyckoff, a Skanska executive vice president. “We’re only a few feet from the existing Beaverton High School during construction.”

Construction has gone smoothly, Skanska officials said. Electrical and mechanical equipment proved to be the most difficult materials to procure, but they were ordered early enough so that no delay resulted, Wyckoff said.

The impact of President Donald Trump’s tariffs program has been minimal to date, Wyckoff said.

Major subcontractors contributing to the Beaverton High project include Apollo Mechanical Contractors, Prairie Electric, REFA Erectors, Goodfellow Bros. and Anning-Johnson Co.

Correction: In an earlier version of this article, Jeffrey Hamman’s name was misspelled. Also, he is senior project manager for the Beaverton School District, not Skanska.

The post New Beaverton High School on track to arrive in 2026 appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Triplett Wellman Contractors is working to complete construction of a Wilsonville school after the first contractor was fired from the job.

Triplett Wellman took over from Emerick Construction. In December, West Linn-Wilsonville School District terminated Emerick, saying it had mismanaged construction at Frog Pond Primary School.

“Emerick Construction repeatedly failed to pay its subcontractors for work related to the Frog Pond Primary project despite receiving regular payment from the district,” the school district stated in December. “These actions by Emerick Construction failed to meet requirements as outlined in its contract and under Oregon law. Emerick Construction also refused to engage in mitigation efforts. These repeated failures led to ongoing delays in construction, and Emerick Construction’s continued inability to pay its subcontractors gave the district no choice but to move forward with a contract termination.”

Emerick, based in Tualatin, did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment on Thursday.

Woodburn-based Triplett Wellman was hired in April. The district worked with bonding company Zurich to resume work under the terms of the performance bond, the district stated.

“Work has fully resumed with completion expected sometime next school year,” district spokesman Andrew Kilstrom stated in an email on Wednesday.

Frog Pond Primary School will officially open in 2026-27.

Triplett Wellman previously completed Sunset Primary School for the district in 2017.

The post Wilsonville school project resumes with new contractor appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.