Students of Roosevelt High School in North Portland returned from their winter break last month to a handful of newly-opened spaces at the school, which is undergoing a $92 million renovation and modernization.

Portions of the project’s first phase, which includes all new construction and the renovation of the former auditorium building, were opened before the beginning of the school year last September. Last month, completion of Phase 1B was marked with the opening of a new theater, a smaller black box theater and classroom space, a commons/cafeteria and new kitchen, a writing center, and band room.

Contractor Lease Crutcher Lewis is currently working on the second phase of the Bassetti Architecture-designed project, which includes the renovation of the 96-year-old main building and a former cafeteria and theater/band building.

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Over the first two weeks of the 2016-17 academic year, administrators at Roosevelt High School reportedly dealt with only one disciplinary incident. Usually, staffers address many, many more, according to Vice Principal Daniel Malone, who thinks he knows what’s behind such a sudden and significant behavioral shift.

“This is a different kind of space,” he said. “Maybe they’re asking themselves, ‘Does this feel like a place to work or a place to play?’”

Crews scrambled night and day to turn over the first construction phase of the $92 million renovation and modernization effort at Roosevelt – one of four large projects funded by the 2012 Portland Public Schools bond. As the second phase gets out of the gate, Roosevelt is very much still a construction site, but district officials maintain that’s not a bad thing.

Visible changes

In August, Roosevelt students returned to a completely different facility. Gone are the dark and dingy pink-tiled restrooms, and “vermin,” to use Malone’s term.

New construction created a two-court main gymnasium, an auxiliary gym, a weight room, 33 general education classrooms, plus several career-technical classrooms for industrial arts/construction courses, a STEM/robotics laboratory and a writing/digital media publishing center. The new facilities will house three new community program spaces.

Renovation work is complete on the former auditorium building, which will now serve as the new media center / library with many new classrooms below. In just a few months, additional new facilities will open. These include the commons/cafeteria, band room, theater and “black box” theater classroom.

But the contractor, Lease Crutcher Lewis, isn’t quite ready to hand over certain areas, so the existing cafeteria wing will continue to house theater and band programs. The performing arts and commons wing, originally scheduled to open in the fall, now won’t do so until winter.

Another reason for the jockeying is tied to the 135-foot-high boom crane needed to renovate parts of the 95-year-old building. The iconic clock tower has limited options for positioning the machine, which is needed to convey materials for the renovation. The district will postpone opening areas under the crane’s swing radius – the new cafeteria and commons area, as well as the band room.

School first

With the school year under way and half of the project finished, Lease Crutcher Lewis crews are at work on the distinctive U-shaped original building.

Adding to an old building is always a challenge, PPS‘ Chief of Modernization Jerry Vincent said. Plus, with 900 high school students, teachers and staff, and upwards of 250 construction workers across 202,000 square feet, the site is rather constrained.

“It’s a very tight site,” Vincent said. “Plus there’s kids.”

The decision to keep the school occupied was a financial one, Vincent said. Acquiring portable classrooms or other swing space would have cost the district between $5 million and $6 million. The agreement is for the project to be completed in two years, but the team was under the gun to complete 65 percent of the project within one year. To finish within that demanding time frame, crews worked six days a week, with a swing-shift outfit performing work on space otherwise used for school activities. Crews even worked seven days a week in June and July.

There’s one choke point near the back of the school where builders and students cross paths. A guard stands there most hours of the day, allowing students to pass during their six-minute breaks between classes.

“It’s a school site first, and a construction site second,” Vincent said. “A key component of the project is that operations have to stay up and running for the school and safety is maintained and we do construction around that. So it’s not like they’re on our site – We’re on their site.”

Remnants of the past

Roosevelt is one of two high schools now under construction via money from the 2012 bond; the other is Franklin. Construction also is taking place at Faubion School, a K-8 facility. The fourth major bond-funded project is an update of Grant High School; it’s now being designed.

Despite the years of planning involved, old buildings like those at Roosevelt contain mysteries that keep contractors on their toes.

“When you can expose the undercarriage of your building, you start to see what your template is and if it actually matches the drawings,” Vincent said. “One of the biggest unforeseens we’ve had is all the changes over 80-plus years weren’t recorded, so we’re running into a lot of surprises in here.”

Crews have found unreinforced masonry (URM) as they go about adding shear walls and tying them in. As written into the bond language, seismic remediation is a major element of work all around the district. URM walls discovered in Roosevelt aren’t supposed to be load-bearing, but many of them appear to have been holding something up.

As crews tackle demolition, they are pulling tile and removing windows for cleaning. Lead pipes and lead fixtures are coming out by the Dumpster-full, and other environmental and health hazards are being addressed. Asbestos is a major concern, in part because it’s found in so many historic materials like magnesite, which was used in the original construction and in some cases was covered with three levels of overlays.

“It’s another of those seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time materials,” said David Mayne, communication manager for the bond program.

On a tour of the construction site, Vincent was pleased to see it being used as a school – i.e., kids studying, posters adorning the walls.

“I love to (see them) taking ownership of it,” he said.

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This summer will see Portland Public Schools’ biggest construction season to date, spurred by the $482 million passed by voters in 2012.

During the summer of 2013, rehabilitative construction work was completed on six schools, and in 2014 major work was done on more 12 schools. But this summer’s work calls for the biggest effort yet: construction work at 29 schools, including major restoration and new buildings at Franklin and Roosevelt high schools.

Groundbreaking for construction at Roosevelt High will be at 10 a.m., May 2, while groundbreaking for work at Franklin High will be May 16 at noon.

In addition to the renovations at Roosevelt and Franklin, nine other Portland schools are in line for roof repair or replacement, seismic upgrades and American Disabilities Act improvements such as installing elevators at Ainsworth and Woodlawn schools, both K-12 schools. Another 18 schools will have work done to upgrade to sixth and eighth grade science classrooms, some also with ADA work.

The school district plans to spend about $35 million from June through August, said David Mayne, bond spokesman for the district. All the work so far has been on budget and on time, he said.

“Our long-range plan is to modernize all of our schools,” Mayne said. “Most were built before World War II, and they didn’t think about seismic or access back then in the way we do.”

The bond has a built-in annual audit, he said, which is near completion for this year and will be available in early summer. The audit report will be turned over to the Portland School Board next week, he said.

“I’m confident we’re doing great, but if there are any alarm signals, they will let us know,” he said.

The bond measure is also overseen by the Bond Accountability Committee, he said, comprised of volunteer experts who recently completed a quarterly review that will be presented at a future school board meeting.

Historic update for Franklin

Franklin High was built in 1915, Mayne said, and while the general façade and feel of the historic building will be preserved, it will be gutted and repurposed, and new buildings will be added to the campus, including the new Center for the Arts at the intersection of Southeast Woodward Street and Southeast 52^nd Avenue.

Franklin’s historic auditorium will be preserved, but will be converted to a two-story Media Center and the entrance to the original main building will be transformed to a two-story entry and lobby space. The school’s track and field will be realigned 90 degrees to make room for a new athletic gym and educational facility and new classroom spaces will be created for science, technology, engineering and math education, as well as Career Pathways programs that include culinary arts, the law and the Constitution, health science and biomedical, and industrial arts.

Project design for Franklin High is by the DOWA-IBI Group and SERA Architects, and the Skanska is prime contractor. The total budget for Franklin’s reconstruction is $106 million, with guaranteed maximum pricing of $81.8 million for the construction phase. Plans call for completion of the renovations at Franklin by all 2017, when classes will resume. During construction, Franklin students will attend Marshall High, which was closed in 2011 but has since been upgraded with money from the bond. Work at Franklin will begin after classes end in mid-June.

Roosevelt work under way

Prep work already has started at Roosevelt High, said school district spokeswoman Christine Miles. Several classrooms and the auditorium have been vacated, math classes are currently being held in the cafeteria, and a fence has been built close to the baseball field for a construction staging area. A heated tent will also be added at the site for physical education classes.

Bassetti Architects is in charge of design for the Roosevelt renovations and the general contractor is Lease Crutcher Lewis.

Students will remain at Roosevelt while the renovation is in progress, but with several changes to accommodate construction.

“They will have one or two portable buildings in front of the school, and when the kids return (in the fall) the school will look very different,” Miles said.

Work on Roosevelt High is set for completion in December 2017 and will be done in phases. Work this year includes demolition of the gym, music building and boiler room and followed by construction of a new gym, a new classroom wing, a new auditorium and student commons area cafeteria. The old auditorium will be made into a new media center. All are set to open in the fall of 2016.

The next construction phase at Roosevelt, which was built in 1921, is set to start in summer 2016 with renovation of the original buildings and construction of the second half of the student commons area. Some buildings will be demolished next summer and final site work and landscaping will be finished up in the fall of 2017, when all the modernized buildings will be open to students.

The total budget for reconstruction of Roosevelt High, which is smaller than Franklin, is $96 million with a guaranteed maximum pricing of $69.3 million during the construction phase.

The construction bond, which was approved by a two-thirds majority, was based on a citizen-developed and prioritized plan, according to the school district. In addition to Franklin and Roosevelt high schools, Grant High will also go through a full modernization with master planning set for this fall. Work at Grant will begin in summer 2017 and will be complete in time for students to return to their campus in fall 2019. Grant students will also attend school at the Marshall High campus during the construction of their new school.

Citizens in the Grant community are invited to serve in a design advisory committee, Mayne said, to help with the master planning process to modernize the school. Anyone interested can sign up .

To “fully modernize” a school rather than replace it depends on the age of the building, its historical significance, condition, deficiencies, size and needs, according to the bond website at http://www.pps.k12.or.us/bond.

“A full modernization addresses all of the deficient systems and significantly rehabilitates a school,” the site states. Improvements would ensure an efficient building system that is fully accessible and meets all codes.

The bond issue will also partly fund construction of a new Faubion School for prekindergarten through eighth grade that will include Concordia University’s School of Education. The PPS bond is funding $29 million for the new school. Concordia will provide land, resources and funding (from $7.5 million to $15.5 million) for the new facility that will also provide an early childhood education center, a health and wellness center and other services for the community.

The Faubion project is currently in the design phase and should be completely built by the fall of 2017. During construction, Faubion students will attend the Tubman School, starting in the fall of 2015. Faubion’s master plan was created in partnership with Boora Architects, PPS, Concordia University, Faubion staff, families, students and community members.

The school district’s long range plans for the health of its buildings will focus on three more high schools in the near future, Mayne said.

“Starting this fall we’re going to master plan three more high schools – Benson, Lincoln and Madison — with future construction of those high schools contingent on passage of a future bond measure,” he said. “We determined those three would be the next to be rebuilt.

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The first phase of modernization of Portland’s Roosevelt High School is poised to start soon, and finish by the end of 2017.

“We’re mobilizing this spring and will be doing some site work,” said Michelle Platter, Portland Public Schools‘ capital project director. “We’ll get into some heavy construction after school releases for the summer.”

‘s total cost began at $72 million, but has since increased to $92 million, according to Jim Owens, executive director of PPS‘ Office of School Modernization. He said that with school capacity increasing, more classrooms are needed. Also, construction costs are higher than expected previously.

The Roosevelt project is part of PPS’ eight-year school improvement effort made possible via a $482 million bond passed by voters in 2012. District officials didn’t need to find $20 million more for the project because planners previously allocated $45 million to cover cost increases incurred over the eight-year construction schedule.

“Because the high schools are the centerpiece of the bond program, we wanted to make sure they were fully funded,” Owens said, noting that Franklin High School and Grant High School also are due for modernizations. “So, we’re able to tap into that funding to make the necessary changes.”

Platter said the Roosevelt modernization project will be completed in three phases. The first phase will include construction of a performance/visual arts wing and media center, a wing featuring a gym and new classrooms, a new kitchen, and “enough of the commons area to provide students with cafeteria space.”

Phase one is scheduled for completion in fall 2016.

Phase two will entail a complete remodel of the main, U-shaped building that was part of the original high school built in 1921.

“They will be gutting the interior, doing a seismic upgrade, adding new, modern classroom spaces, installing (an) all-new (information technology system) and redoing the electrical, plumbing and heating systems,” Platter said. “It will basically be an all-new building in the shell of the old building.”

The final phase will include the last of the demolition and site cleanup projects, Platter said.

Several buildings – an existing boiler building completed in 1921, a gymnasium constructed in 1950, a classrooms/library building from 1960 and an auto shop built in 1970 – will be demolished.

New construction will create a 500-seat auditorium, a 5,400-square-foot auxiliary gymnasium, a kitchen and cafeteria, and a commons area.

“Roosevelt High School previously has been a series of separate buildings that, with the commons area, will be better connected,” Platter said. “We’re creating the commons area to create unification between the buildings. It’s better for (inclement) weather and better for safety.”

Upon completion, the school’s total space will be 239,945 square feet in eight buildings – up from 228,536 square feet in nine buildings.

Roosevelt students will continue to attend classes at the school during construction. Three temporary classrooms – two with about 1,800 square feet of space and one with about 9,400 square feet of space – will be located at the south end of campus. Additionally, a “gymnasium tent” of about 7,500 square feet will be erected for students to use while the new gym is being built. Platter explained that the tent will be a large, enclosed, metal-framed, fabric-covered structure.

The district hired Lease Crutcher Lewis as the general contractor for the project. Platter said the firm has worked with the school district throughout the design process. Bassetti Architects is the architect.

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With $14.2 million worth of summer construction projects completed late last month on a very tight schedule, Portland Public Schools is now focusing on its next steps stemming from the $482 million bond measure approved by voters in 2012.

Five firms – P&C Construction, Payne Construction, Baldwin General Contracting, 2KG Contractors and Cedar Mill Construction Co. – completed roof replacements, seismic upgrades and ADA accessibility improvements at 12 PPS elementary or middle schools before students returned on Tuesday. Some crews worked six or seven days a week, said Jim Owens, the district’s senior director for the Office of School Modernization.

“When kids came back, it was like nothing happened,” he said. “I would characterize it as a great success.”

One project now beginning is preparation of the vacant Marshall High School for occupancy, Owens said. The school will become a temporary home – first for Franklin High students starting next spring when a modernization of their school begins. After that two-year project finishes, Grant High students will move into Marshall in 2017 for two years while their school is modernized. Other high school modernizations are planned as part of an expected 2016 bond measure, so Marshall could become a temporary home well into the future, Owens said.

Marshall has been closed since 2006, and $4 million worth of work will take place to bring it up to speed, Owens said. Skanska USA Building will improve classrooms, install new flooring and lighting, and perform roof repairs. The school, built in the 1950s, also will gain an upgraded fire-life safety system to meet current code. The athletic field will have its natural turf replaced with artificial turf via a partnership with Nike.

“It’s an opportunity that is unique to Portland Public Schools that we have a large facility that can accommodate those students,” he said. “We are getting it ready for when Franklin work starts next spring.”

The $71 million Roosevelt High School modernization project, also being paid for with 2012 bond money, will not require students to vacate during construction, Owens said. Lease Crutcher Lewis is the construction manager-general contractor for that project, which will be scheduled so that potential conflicts with students are avoided.

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Portland Public Schools’ Board of Education on Monday reviewed new schematic designs for the $71 million Roosevelt High School modernization project scheduled to be built beginning in 2015.

Plans call for construction of a 500-seat auditorium, a 5,400-square-foot auxiliary gym and a commons area that will connect all disparate parts of the school, said Michelle Platter, capital project director for the district.

“Not a lot has changed,” she said. “The only change of note is the increase of the size of the career and technical education spaces. They had been 6,000 square feet, but the space is now going to be 7,500 square feet.”

The interconnectivity of space is a key component of the project, Platter said.

“In its current layout, the school is a series of separate buildings,” she said. “We’re unifying the school and connecting all the facilities.”

Lease Crutcher Lewis is the construction manager-general contractor for the Roosevelt project, and Seattle-based Bassetti Architects is the architect. Construction will be unique in that students will occupy the school while work is performed, said Pam Knowles, co-chairwoman of the PPS board. Some areas will be cordoned off during construction, she said.

“We’re able to do that because we’re building Roosevelt to a capacity of 1,350 students with common areas to provide for 1,700 students,” she said. “There’s room to move.”

Franklin and Grant high schools – both due for upgrades stemming from the district’s $482 million bond measure passed in 2012 – will relocate students during construction.

Board members are likely to approve the schematic design plans when they vote after a public hearing on Monday, Platter said. If the OK were given, the project would then move into the design development stage.

The school board also will weigh a proposal to borrow $8 million to pay for additional classroom space at Roosevelt and Franklin high schools. The bank loan would be repaid with premiums generated by the first increment of bond financing, said Jim Owens, executive director of the district’s Office of School Modernization.

“We had initially looked at getting money by taking it away from our summer construction projects,” he said. “That plan is off the table.”

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An advisory committee for Portland Public Schools is ranking which of its high schools most need capital improvements that would be paid for via a bond expected to go before voters in 2016, a district official said Monday.

PPS has initiated school improvement projects that were approved as part of its $482 million bond approved by voters in 2012. But only three of the district’s nine high schools are being modernized with that money. Projects at Franklin and Roosevelt high schools, still in the design phase, are slated to begin in 2015. Grant High School will be modernized starting in 2017.

The 24-person Bond Development Committee is determining which three of PPS’ other six high schools would be targeted next in a 2016 bond measure, said Jim Owens, executive director for PPS’ Office of School Modernization.

“The long-range plan is to do all nine of the high schools,” he said. “We are positioned to go forward in the fall of 2016 to get additional high schools put on. We are trying to determine what would be the criteria for the next three.”

The criteria – including building and seismic conditions, accessibility and the opportunity to leverage funding – will be weighed by the committee. Recommendations will be sent to the district’s superintendent, Carole Smith, who will then refer them to PPS’ board of directors for a decision June 23, Owens said.

Master planning work, funded via the 2012 bond, would then take place for the three chosen schools, he said. A third bond could be issued in 2020 for the remaining three high schools.

The current bond also includes money for summer improvement projects at up to 63 other schools for seven consecutive summers, Owens said. PPS will begin opening bidding this week for six summer improvement projects ($10 million in total construction value) covering 12 elementary or middle schools. Work will start June 13 and include roof replacements, seismic upgrades, ADA accessibility and science classroom construction.

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Roosevelt High School officials believe the best way to position students for success is to expose them to as many opportunities as possible. So, the North Portland school has created a program in which is teaching the freshman class about the building industry.

Angela Nusom, college and career transitions manager at Roosevelt, hopes the program will help students plan for the future.

“This program will get students to ask themselves, ‘Is this industry something of interest to me?’ And if they could answer yes, that to me is a success,” she said. “It will broaden their ideas and then help to narrow them.”

The program, which started in February and will continue monthly through June, uses architecture to expose students to building industry careers. Lorne McConachie, a Bassetti principal, said there is a common misconception that the architecture industry provides only design jobs.

“Truth be known, within the architecture industry, there’s just a wide variety of elements, roles and activities that kids can do,” McConachie said. “Our intent is really to introduce kids to career pathways and let them know (that) whether they want to be a plumber or a structural engineer, there’s some fun stuff to be aware of.”

In the first session, students had an opportunity to take part in a photo scavenger hunt of University of Portland campus buildings as a way to learn architectural vocabulary. Students have since become more involved in actual design projects, including a renovation project for the school’s library. Roosevelt officials will consider students’ renovation designs as the project moves forward in the next few years.

McConachie said that even if students choose not to pursue a career in the building industry, they could apply the skills learned to other jobs.

“I think part of the immersion into the design world is not so much that you have to be an architect or an engineer, but that you have to think deeply about something,” he said. “At the end of the day, as a designer, we have to take analytical processes and synthesize them into a whole, an outcome. Whether they want to be architects or bank executives, it’s an important thing for them to learn.”

As sessions have progressed, students’ interest in the program has grown. McConachie admitted that when he asked the students about their interest in architecture during the first session, only three students – out of 250 – raised their hands in response. But during last week’s session, many students eagerly drew plans and generated ideas for the library expansion.

“I don’t think I’m going to be an architect, but I like giving ideas for projects,” said Adrienne Pepper, a 15-year-old student who wants to become a nurse. “When they first came in, I thought we were just going to be talking about jobs, but I didn’t actually know they were going to be remodeling the library; now I’m more interested in it.”

Billy Nelson, a 15-year-old student, said the industry’s collaborative process interests him the most.

“We’re just working together and thinking up ideas with each other,” he said as he enthusiastically described his design for the library expansion, which included two floors and a hot tub. “It’s opening a new door for me.”

Both Nusom and McConachie said the program is not only a learning process for the students, but also the school and the architecture firm. McConachie said Bassetti is involved in a number of other community service programs in the Northwest, but none is as extensive as the one with Roosevelt. He added that Bassetti chooses to do such programs because they provide information about schools – one of the firm’s client types.

Nusom said Roosevelt hopes to conduct a learning program with a different company each year. The program with Bassetti is part of the school’s Freshman Academy, which creates a supportive environment for freshmen as they transition into high school.

The academy has helped the school lower its dropout rate, one of the highest in the city, significantly in the last few years. Nusom hopes the program with Bassetti will build on that success.

“Career Day is great, but really kids need sustained exposure to be able to evaluate whether or not something interests them enough to pursue it,” she said. “If they’re doing it for six months on a regular basis, like with Bassetti, more of that processing could happen.”

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