Local Construction Experts Tour School’s Bond Project

— by Paula Treneer —

Members of the Orcas Island School Board and other community members instrumental in achieving the goal of school bond approval (“A Way Forward”) convened at the Orcas Island School District campus on October 2nd for a brief tour of the ongoing construction site. The $11.9 M project was approved by district voters in 2012; construction began in June 2014, and is scheduled for completion by Sept. 2015.

Tiger Construction of Everson, Wash., is the general contractor for the bond project. Their bid for the contract was accepted by the School Board last spring for $7.935M.

The tour group was led by Liz LeRoy, Bond Project Manager; it included:

• Eric Webb, Superintendent of the Orcas Island School District
• Greg White,School Board member and parent,  land surveyor and owner of Archipelago Surveying
• Fred Klein, architect and facilitator of the consensus-building community group “A Way Forward”
• David Kau, school parent and architect.
• Rick Hughes, San Juan County Councilman and business owner
• Madie Murray, Farm to Cafeteria Committee Chair

The tour included a survey of the current progress of Phase I, highlighting
(1) Middle School Building 200 (old Library). The former Library and OASIS High School offices are being remodeled for new use as a Middle School building, which will encompass two classrooms, a math and physics classroom, a Special Education classroom, two small group rooms and an office;

(2) Music Building Addition (located on the north side of the Gym). Newly constructed, with an interior layout which includes a dual-purpose room for band and instrument storage, three practice rooms and a workroom, scheduled for completion in February 2015,

(3) Building 300 (Career and Tech Education). Another newly constructed building resulting from demolition of the prior CTE structure, the Building 300/CTE will include three new classrooms, for woodworking, physics and art, also scheduled for completion in February 2015. The woodshop includes an artfully designed space for wood storage while the Physics classroom has a kiln room and storage.

LeRoy said that construction projects to date were going well, due to the long stretch of beneficial weather this past summer, enabling the crew to work long days and nights (with the assistance of floodlights, whose presence occasioned at least one question from one of the attendees). At this rate, Phase I is on schedule for the expected completion dates of December 2014 and February 2015.

Phase II of construction begins in January 2015 and is staggered with the Middle School moving into the old Library (now Building 200), enabling the demolition of the stage and remodel of the Cafeteria/Middle School Commons for its intended re-purposing as the Library, Kitchen/Culinary Arts Room and Cafeteria.

The new Library will encompass elements of design and technology to facilitate collaboration and technology access: including Library Student Center and Workroom, and the Technology Lab.

Phase III, scheduled for completion by September 2015, provides entry drive revision on High School Road.

Tour attendees closely inspected the quality of construction work and asked penetrating questions of the project manager, demonstrating the hands-on knowledge possessed by members of the School Board and other advisory committee members. Several of the attendees engaged LeRoy in in-depth discussion of the design trade-offs and use of construction materials, Fred Klein and David Kau highlighted a number of construction decisions which might have gone unnoticed in the absence of well-informed community participants.

In representing San Juan County’s potential assistance, Rick Hughes offered to tie-in the road re-surfacing to the Country road work projects as well as volunteering the County’s assistance in repairing the outsized potholes which have developed during the construction process. (LeRoy deferred Hughes’ offer, until all construction is finished.)

Hughes asked if there had been consideration of using local lumber and was told the cost was not competitive. He also raised questions pertaining to the project’s costs, which were partially answered and partially deferred to the school district superintendent.

In summary, the progress of Phase I of the Orcas Island School Bond Construction appears to be progressing on-schedule, to the satisfaction of community representatives and School Board members attending this tour.