$1.5B Bond Goes a Long Way in Building, Upgrading Area Schools

By Siedsma, Andrea

Phenomenal population growth in California during the past decade has not only clogged the freeways and elevated housing prices, but also has put a squeeze on many schools, colleges and universities, which have become overcrowded and fallen into disrepair.

In 1998, San Diego voters passed a bond measure intended to pay for badly needed renovations, repairs and replacement of existing schools. Known as Proposition MM, the $1.51 billion bond measure funded the construction of 15 new schools in the San Diego Unified School District, as well as the modernization of 161 sites, including 102 libraries, 80 instructional support spaces, 40 sciences buildings, 18 permanent classroom buildings, 129 lunch court shelters, 153 playground units, the painting of 141 sites and the reproofing of 52 sites.

Just this week, five new state-of-the-art schools are opening, including Abraham Lincoln High School, Thurgood Marshall Middle School, and Luther Burbank, Laura G. Rodriguez and Florence Griffith Joyner elementary schools. It is the first time in nearly four decades that the San Diego Unified School District has opened five new schools on the same day. Meanwhile, Walter Porter Elementary in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of Southeast San Diego, opened its doors in January.

The total cost of land acquisition and construction and design for the rebuilt Lincoin High, also located in Lincoln Heights, was about $130 million. The new high school includes 77 general classrooms, an arts complex, library, 16 science classrooms, eight science prep rooms, seven technology classrooms, a career center, and a 790-seat auditorium. The school’s athletic facilities include locker rooms, a weight room, adaptive PE room, two gyms, baseball fields, a track, football field, press box and concession stand.

Lincoln High, which sits on 24.4 acres, will accommodate 2,700 students in grades nine through 12. The project partners for the new Lincoln High were Douglas E. Barnhart Inc. and Martinez + Cutri Architects.

Information about the district’s new schools and Proposition MM can be found at http://prod03l.sandi.net/propmm/index.htm.

Budgeting For Contracts

San Diego Unified expects its construction contract awards to total $18 million this year, according to Cynthia Reed-Porter, communications liaison for the school district’s Facilities Management Division. That’s compared to $22 million spent on contracts in 2006. Next year, that amount will shrink to about $2.5 million as Proposition MM funding begins to diminish.

Although the remaining funds are sufficient to cover the district’s $258 million building and maintenance backlog, the reserve of bond money is expected to be depleted in 2008.

The district, which is fine-tuning its long-range facilities development plan, is already working to present voters with another bond measure in November 2008. Even before Proposition MM was passed, the school district had identified the need for about $4 billion for repairs and replacements for schools. The bond measure proposal will most likely be about $3.5 billion, said Reed-Porter.

“When we started Proposition MM, 60 of our schools were more than 40 years old and the majority of the others had been open 20 to 30 years,” Reed-Porter said. “These bond measures are critical because with the budget constraints of the district there is a need for a funding source over and above what’s in the general fund.”

Up until about 10 years ago, the general public turned its head away from bond measures for school districts and colleges, making it extremely difficult for any construction or repairs of local schools. The success of bond measures like Proposition MM comes from awareness that in order for students to receive the best quality education, they need to have quality facilities and resources like the latest technology in order to be prepared for college and for the work force.

So says Michael Wilkes, chief executive officer and principal of San Diego-based Architects I Delawie Wilkes Rodrigues Barker, whose clients include colleges, universities, research institutions and life sciences and technology companies such as Qualcomm Inc. and New York City-based Pfizer Inc. The privately-held firm, which has 66 employees, has been in business since 1961 and was involved in its first school project – Miramar Ranch Elementary School – in 1974.

Many local schools and colleges, Wilkes said, are not only reaching the end of their life functional lives, but they may not be built to meet seismic safety standards. He pointed out that the fire codes in buildings have advanced so far from the 1950s and ’60s that many of the fire systems in schools and colleges need to be replaced.

“We did a project for Mesa College a few years ago to provide facilities for faculty that were in chain-link offices,” Wilkes said. The reality is they need to be more competitive at recruiting the best and brightest. Schools like to provide better buildings not only for the students, but also for hiring and retaining faculty.”

USD Builds On Spanish Theme

To help retain its image as a progressive and state-of-the-art learning center of excellence, the University of San Diego relies on private donations to keep up its facilities and buildings. Architects / Delawie Wilkes Rodrigues Barker recently provided the design and technical documents for USD’s new $34.4 million School of Leadership and Educational Sciences building. The two-level facility over subterranean parking features 14 classroom/seminar rooms, a 200- seat auditorium, a 60-seat executive classroom, offices, a 2,000- square-foot reading room and a cyber cafe. The architecture of the privately-funded, 83,000-square-foot building is 16th century Spanish Renaissance style, which Wilkes studied extensively during trips to Spain. The building design has a signature tower, an outdoor courtyard and a two-story loggia to reflect the period architecture and to complement the existing USD campus architecture. The landscape design reflects elements of a classic Spanish landscape with the use of fountains and intimate garden areas.

The steel-framed USD building also was designed with flexibility in mind so it can be changed to meet future needs.

“Education is constantly reinventing itself,” Wilkes said. “For example, who would have thought 10 years ago that PowerPoint would be used in the classroom?

“With this steel-frame building, at any time you can demolish it and switch it from a classroom to offices or a seminar room, or vice versa,” he added, pointing out that designing the building to have built-in flexibility didn’t cost extra. “The flexibility allows those spaces to evolve over time.”

Wilkes said state-of-the-art schools, colleges and universities allow regions like San Diego to attract and retain businesses.

“We’re not competing just in the Untied States with schools in order to draw the finest businesses, but we’re also competing on a global level to have the finest schools,” he said. “To maintain our global competitive edge we need the best schools and students.”

UCSD’s Green Project

Over on the Torrey Pines Mesa, UC San Diego has a new $30 million concrete and steel hybrid building. The $30 million UCSD Student Academic Services facility, which opened in March, was built by San Diego-based McCarthy Building Cos. Inc.

The five-story, 141,000-square-foot facility has a myriad of sustainable features and will be self-certified by UCSD using the US. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating system. The project was coordinated through the use of 3D BIM – Building Information Modeling – technology.

Designed by San Diego architect Rob Wellington Quigley, the L- shaped student services building has a 300-seat multipurpose room that features 16-foot roll-up windows that open into the courtyard, an immense drop ceiling with enhanced acoustics, and a concrete block wall. Two restaurants and retail stores will eventually serve both visitors and the campus community. The design of the building incorporated natural, unfinished materials, open ceilings with exposed mechanical and electrical systems, and residentialquality finishes.

Green buildings such as the UCSD Student Services facility are becoming more prevalent around the nation.

“As global warming and environmental issues come to the forefront we will see more green government and education projects in the future,” said Russell McCarthy, director of business development for McCarthy Building Cos. “It’s all about energy management.”

McCarthy Building Cos., which also built San Diego’s new Laura G. Rodriguez Elementary School, has been in the school-building business off and on since its founding 143 years ago.

“Building something for the community that has a purpose is exciting,” McCarthy said. “We’re building for the future.”

Copyright San Diego Business Journal Sep 3, 2007

(c) 2007 San Diego Business Journal. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.