Weitz Estimates High School Renovation at $26 M
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DES MOINES REGISTER / January 19, 2009
By KRISTA KIELSMEIER
kkielsme@dmreg.com
The total project cost to renovate the current Southeast Polk High School into a junior high has been estimated at more than $26 million.
Construction management firm the Weitz Co. of Des Moines provided budget estimates at a Jan. 8 meeting of the school district’s board of education.
“This is the new junior high,” said Superintendent Tom Downs. “This is the school the community may use for the next 60 to 70 years. This is not a temporary fix because we had a building empty. Just to look at it from the perspective that we are going to renovate an old building and make it usable would be violating the standard we established when we designed the new high school.”
Board members approved the construction management contract and schematic design with Weitz on Jan. 8, and they examined the preliminary costs.
A few of the primary improvements to the existing schematic design include more natural lighting, better handicap access, technology upgrades, additional locker rooms and safer bus loading and unloading areas.
The main entry and administrative offices would be relocated to allow for easier access. A music department with two instrumental music rooms, two vocal music rooms, two fine arts rooms and a space for an orchestra program would be located where the high school industrial technology classes have been held.
District leaders aim to have the facility ready for junior high use by fall 2010. The high school is slated to open this fall, a year behind schedule.
“All of us on the committee and design team recognize how complex this project is,” said Ken Gantz, the project’s principal architect from Frevert-Ramsey-Kobes Architects-Engineers. “It’s a large project and it’s a project that has to get done in a very short time, so it requires a very strong effort on everyone’s part.”
A large portion of the project costs would be directed to provide a new heating, ventilation and air conditioning mechanical system with a more energy-efficient geothermal heat pump system. The HVAC item on the budget summary had an estimated cost of $7,597,000.
Downs said the school that was built in the 1960s is suited for many more years of use. He said some people have asked whether the building should be torn down to construct a new junior high in the same location.
“And every engineer, every architect, every contractor on the team said, 'Oh, heavens no. You’ve got a perfectly sound building that needs some renovation,’ ” Downs said.
The estimated cost for a new junior high of a similar size to the current high school was around $45 million.
Gantz said planners estimated the school would have an enrollment of about 1,000 students when junior high classes start at the renovated facility. He said the design would give the school a capacity of about 1,200 students, but Downs said that was a conservative number. Currently, the high school has an enrollment of about 1,700 students, and they cram into the hallways during class changes.
“I’m comfortable with the capacity of this building to withstand growth in this district for many years to come,” said Glenn Dietzenbach, junior high principal.
Business manager Mike Hamilton said the project would not lead to an increase in the district’s property tax levy.
“We went into it with what does the staff need to continue to deliver quality instruction at the seventh- and eighth-grade level, and what do we believe is going to be up to the standards that we’ve created already with the new high school,” Downs said. “So we went at this from that perspective, knowing the whole time we did it that sales tax revenue was going to have to be the funding source for this and the initial estimates for sales tax revenue were somewhere from $35 to $40 million dollars.”
Project manager Eric Simon said asbestos abatement also would be necessary for the building of about 200,000 square feet. He said Weitz aimed to reach substantial completion on the project by July 2010.