April 25 Design Update

Ross Parker and his team from DOWA-IBI presented the final schematic design last night to the assembled Design Committee. Over the past month, community members have worked to develop a design for the new school that builds on the community visioning meeting that took place last January and the school tours that followed soon after that. DOWA-IBI has worked to put those ideas into a design that is affordable, meets the educational specifications needed for a school that will serve 400 students and last for 50 years. 

The design that the committee developed includes modernizing the existing gym, music room and shops as well as repurposing the commons area to be a library and business lab. New construction will include a new commons, office spaces and 11 new classroom spaces. All together, 56% of our budget will be spent on new construction and the remainder on renovation of existing space.

Ross' team did several cost analyses beginning with not using any of the existing structure and building an entirely new facility. At $384/s.f. for 78,000 s.f., that represents a construction cost of $29.9 million. When the team factored in soft costs (permits, sales tax, consulting fees, etc.) the project cost becomes $41.9 million. This is $15 million over our budget. In order to build a brand new school within our current budget, we would need to reduce the size of our school to about 49,000 s.f. or about the size of the gym.

The Design Committee felt that a hybrid design that incorporates new construction and renovation was the most responsible use of resources.

It was remarkable to me that our final schematic design was delivered two years to the day of when Chuck Caley first proposed the idea that we could build a new school almost as cheaply as remodeling. To see Chuck's presentation to the Facilities Advisory Committee from April 25, 2017 go to this link.  Chuck envisioned a school that would retain the gym and shops and would build new in between. Costs have escalated since his presentation and the design is quite different, but the germ of the new school was there even two years ago. 

Now that the schematic design is complete, DOWA-IBI and their team will begin working on the thousands of details that go into developing the design into construction documents that can be used for bidding. A Construction Committee comprised of a few TSD staff and a few community members will begin advising DOWA-IBI on these designs. There will be community meetings where we'll be reporting out on progress as well as regular updates to this blog. If you missed last night's meeting, you can watch a video of the meeting in its entirety at this link. The sound and videography are not the best, but you can get a sense of what transpired.

We're excited to bring this new school to the community. It'll be a tremendous improvement and source of pride for Toledo. If you have questions about the process or plans, please contact me at the office.

April 15 Update

The Design Committee met last Thursday and reviewed two possible designs as well as discussing additional options to augment or depart from those designs. (For further discussion of those designs, see my previous blog post.) After some discussion of costs, it was clear that Option 6 was the only viable design that could be constructed within our budget. Option 6 will still be a tough squeeze for our available resources. We're awaiting firmer cost estimates that should be coming by the end of the month.

Here's why:
OSPI average construction costs in Washington State are: $368/sf for new construction; $246/sf for renovation. Some areas can be renovated less-expensively and we estimate these areas could be done for about $124/sf. In option 2, we would only have $75/sf for these less-expensive areas. All of these figures are construction costs only. They do not include the cost of architects, project manager, consultants, permits, or sales tax. These are called "soft costs". They are required for construction but don't show up in the building itself. These costs are estimated to be 40% of the total cost of the project. If you do the math, to build a 68,000 sf building would cost 68,000 x ($368 x 1.4) or $35 million. We don't have that much money and our educational specifications call for an additional 8-9,000 sf.

By saving the existing shops, gym and the footprint of the commons and music room and building a little over 31,000 sf, we believe we can achieve our goal of a new THS and meet our educational specifications within our budget of $26 million.

Our architects are developing the schematic design and getting firmer cost estimates. They plan to share this for the design committee's approval on April 25. We're working hard to meet this mark so that our architects have enough time to prepare all of the design and construction documents needed to go out to bid and to avoid costly change orders. Hastily-done plans create costly problems down the road.

By getting our schematic design approved this month, we'll continue to be on track to have our plans out in September. If we miss that mark, it will be the following July before we'll be able to go out to bid and we will lose an estimated 7% to inflation costs (about $1+ million)

Consultant reports continue to come in. We've gotten "green lights" from traffic and archeological/historical (no delays or additional costs). We're continuing to test the structure for composition so we know what to expect with renovation. Hazardous materials review, geotechnical and sensitive lands reviews are nearly done as is our site survey. All of those appear to be unremarkable in findings and we're hopeful for no delays or additional costs.

The committee voted on some interior finish options for carpet, tiles and paint. You can see how they voted here. Look for "Materials Voting" 1-6. While you're there, look at the additional drawings of option 6. They include a conceptual view of what the exterior of the school might look like with the included floor plan.

As the process continues, the architects will work with smaller groups to polish their designs and address cost concerns. If you'd like to participate in the work of the committee, you're invited to attend on April 25 at 6 p.m.

April 10 Update

There has been a lot of activity on the project since my last post. The Design Committee has been meeting weekly and working with Dowa-IBI on creating designs for the school. The committee has also been providing input on design issues such as traffic and parking, and circulation within the building. When they last met, they asked the architects to develop two designs and get some high-level cost estimates for the committee to consider at their next meeting. Here are the two designs they selected:

Option 2

Option 6 

Both designs incorporate the existing gym and shop spaces. These would be modernized. In option 6, the area that is currently the commons would be remodeled to serve as library (Learning Commons) and classroom space. 

Dowa-IBI's team is expected to report back on high-level cost estimates to help the committee make a selection between these two designs for development.

Pre-Design Activities: Survey field work is complete and a final report is expected this week. Same report for Geotechnical review of the site. Our natural resources report is expected in the next 2 weeks. Archeological review site visit is complete and a report is in process. Hazardous Materials field work  is approximately 80% complete. The remaining sampling should be complete in the next two weeks. (These are the people who look for asbestos, underground fuel tanks, PCBs, lead-based paint and the like.) Traffic survey is underway.

We've asked for our consultants to image the interior of our gym and shop walls to determine the configuration of the construction. They will also take core samples of the walls. We're expecting this testing to be done this week or next with reports to follow soon. We're also examining the existing building footings to ensure that they are capable of supporting the additional load of a pitched roof.

In consultation with Nichols Consulting, we've determined that portables will not be needed to house students during the project. We expect to be able to phase construction in such a way that temporary housing will not be required. This will save money that can be used in construction.

The next meeting of the Design Committee will be tomorrow, April 11 at 6 pm in the THS Library. All those interested are invited to attend. There will be no meeting on April 18 as Dowa-IBI will be developing the final schematic design. This design will be presented on April 25 at 6 pm in the THS Library. 

We continue to work to meet our design schedule so that we are ready to put our project "on the street" for bids in late September, 2019 and award the contract in early November. 

I've heard from a few tradespeople that they would like to be considered for work on this project. TSD is committed to involving as many local people as possible. We believe that tax dollars need to stay in our community and that our community members have a vested interest in the school being the best it can be. If you're interested, keep an eye out for Requests for Proposals in the Daily Journal of Commerce (Seattle) and on our website. All qualified local trades are encouraged to respond.