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Contractors Benefit From Boom in Campus Projects

Contractors Benefit From Boom in Campus Projects

Construction: Public Facilities Help Keep Industry Going in Slump

BY MANDY JACKSON

Staff Writer

As students returned to school over the last two weeks, construction workers finished the last details on a few new San Diego County high schools.

With fewer private construction projects under way, public projects such as schools are keeping contractors busy this year.

The Poway Unified School District opened its fifth high school, Westview High School, on Aug. 26. The $51 million campus is on 72 acres along Camino Ruiz in Rancho Penasquitos. The school opened with 930 students and its capacity is 2,750 students.

The general contractor, San Diego-based Douglas E. Barnhart Inc., delivered the project a month early.

Mike Derouin, senior project manager for Barnhart, said construction was sped up so the school would not have to open at the start of the second semester or wait for the beginning of the 2003-04 school year.

Seven weeks before opening, the school got power. Three weeks later, the water was turned on.

Barnhart’s crew used fax machines at a nearby middle school to communicate with designers and supervisors off the site. Later on, a satellite was brought in for phone, fax and computer service. Generators were used for equipment that required electricity.

The gymnasium is still being completed, seats are being installed in the performing arts center, and the fine arts building is nearly finished.

Westview was designed by NTD Architects of San Diego.

“This school has got a lot more technology than a lot of other schools,” Derouin said.

The school has video, data and wireless capabilities. “We wanted to go with as much technology as possible and the latest technology,” said Poway Unified facilities development director Linda Williams.

Construction Countywide

Poway Unified is paying for Westview with state funding and Mello-Roos taxes. The taxes come from special tax districts created by municipalities and school districts to fund infrastructure projects.

Another high school in Poway Unified is expected to be under construction in 2006. It could break ground sooner, depending on enrollment growth. A site has already been selected near 4S Ranch just west of Rancho Bernardo.

In the San Dieguito Union High School District, Barnhart is the construction manager for $10.4 million in additions and renovations at Torrey Pines and La Costa Canyon high schools.

Barnhart was the general contractor when La Costa Canyon was built six years ago.

The Sweetwater Union High School District, which covers Chula Vista, Bonita, Imperial Beach and south San Diego, has two high schools under construction in San Ysidro and in the master-planned community of Otay Ranch in Chula Vista. Both high schools will have the capacity for 2,600 students.

The 52-acre San Ysidro High School campus on Airway Road opened on July 22 with 550 students. Foster City-based Rudolph & Sletten Inc. is the construction manager.

The school opened about 85 to 90 percent complete, according to Eric Simpson, project manager for Rudolph & Sletten. The gymnasium, library and cafeteria will be completed by November. The construction cost is $37 million, not including the school district’s land costs.

“The biggest thing is classroom space because the area is developing rapidly,” Simpson said. “There is a real emphasis on getting network cabling to all the classrooms. One building is dedicated to technology. It has state of the art science classrooms.”

The unnamed high school in Otay Ranch will be completed in July 2003. In nearby Eastlake, a middle school for up to 1,700 students recently began construction with Rudolph & Sletten as the construction manager.

The contractor built new gymnasium and classroom facilities at Mar Vista and Sweetwater high schools.

Voters in Sweetwater Union approved Prop. BB, a $187 million bond in 2000. It is paying for renovations at 20 high schools, middle schools and education centers.

San Ysidro High is paid for by state funds, Proposition BB money, and Mello-Roos taxes. The Otay Ranch school is funded 50 percent by the state and 50 percent by Mello-Roos.

Proposition MM Projects

Voters in the San Diego Unified School District approved Proposition MM in 1998, providing $1.5 billion to build and repair all types of schools around the district.

Ten high schools will get new or expanded libraries, 20 will get renovated or new science labs, and permanent buildings will replace portable classrooms at six high schools. Lincoln High School in the Lincoln Park neighborhood of Southeast San Diego will be rebuilt and expanded.

Construction is expected to begin in the late spring or early summer of 2004 and be completed in time for the 2006-07 school year. According to San Diego Unified architect Lance Lareau, most of the existing school will be demolished.

Enrollment at Lincoln was about 780 students last year and it is built for 1,475 students. The new school is being designed to hold up to 2,700 students.

Lareau said the No. 1 concern of the community is that Lincoln be a top school academically, with the best possible technology, classrooms and science labs. The district is designing the new Lincoln and acquiring land.

Because the project is still in the planning phases, a general contractor has not yet been selected.

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