School Charts a New Course for Dallas District
A charter school system in Waxahachie, Texas, is constructing a state-of-the-art campus to meet the needs of its growing student body. The district broke ground in April 2014 on its seventh location, the Life School in south Dallas, which will serve 1,000 students. The new school will become a model for future projects in the rapidly growing district.
Staff and administrators were directly involved in the design and planning process to create a campus that exemplifies their teaching methods and embodies the core values of the charter system. The school was built from the ground up and includes many sustainable design elements.
The project started with initial design in August 2013, followed by a master plan and full design in October 2013. The school sits on a 26-acre site that lies partially in a 100-year floodplain, so engineering plans required a flood study and extensive soil conditioning and regrading.
The general contractor and construction manager at-risk, Beck Group of Dallas, is on track to complete the project in only two years from conceptual design to delivery. Beck encountered numerous design and budget changes along the way but says it will meet the time line by being flexible and maintaining strong, cooperative relationships with its subcontractors.
Beck Group architect and project manager Louis Sierra says the main drivers for the 131,000-sq-ft school were the inclusion of natural light and an intuitive plan where the "flow feels obvious"—where clean, modern aesthetics create a new identity for Life School.
The school is broken up into two main areas—the learning zone and the public zone—each embodying two architectural vocabularies. The learning zone consists of low, slug-sloped metal roofs that address the horizontal openness of the site. The public zone features taller volumes clad in CMU block and metal panels cast in the school colors.
Sierra says architects relied on the roof pitches "to make the big moves" between different sections of the school. Roof lines act as "wings" to add height and importance to the main public spaces and entrances and drop in height where there is a need for more privacy. "In many ways, [the design] reinforces one's intuition about where you should and should not go," says Sierra. "It creates a design with a new identity for the school and establishes a design standard for future campuses."
Design of the school's main-access drive called for construction of an oversized box culvert bridge across a creek. Beck also installed a one-mile extension to the sewer line, a task that required extensive coordination with the city and upstream property owners.
The foundation consists of pier-supported grade beams and column piers with slab-on-grade between them. During site preparation, Beck excavated 6 ft below grade, then installed 338 piers to support the steel frame. The exterior skin is made of burnished concrete block combined with grid metal panels. Roof systems include a metal inseam roof, flat metal roof and a metal panel roof on the gymnasium.
Beck senior project manager James Talkington says that as of mid-March, the building was dried in and roughly 70% complete. Classrooms were in various stages of drywall installation, and crews were placing overhead materials in the north half of the school, which houses the gymnasium and the band room.
Two projects in one
Given the tight, two-year time line from conceptual design to occupancy, Sierra says the project team decided to use off-the-shelf steel framing systems for most of the project. Those systems included scissor beams within the classroom bays.
Talkington says the team also included scheduling requirements in each of the specialty contractor bid packages. Contracts were awarded in large part based on the ability of a firm to produce manpower and materials on time. To maximize performance, Beck divided the project in half and started both sections at the same time.
"It basically made for two smaller projects running concurrently. It's a standard Beck practice," says Talkington.
Even though construction contracts were not awarded until design development drawings were 100% complete, designers used in-house estimators for early cost estimates.
Sierra says that as soon as the construction team mobilized, it was then able to identify constructibility and scheduling issues early in the process. Sitework details were also released early, which allowed the contractor to get a head start.
"Integration of the design and construction teams was vital to achieving the tight schedule," says Sierra.
Sustainable, Flexible Design
While Life School did not apply for LEED-Silver certification, Talkington says the project was built with most of the same sustainable elements. The school wraps around an open courtyard and is oriented on the site to maximize northern and eastern sun exposure and minimize west-facing glazing and facades.
Broad overhangs on classroom windows and sunshades reduce heat gain but allow for natural light. The wide corridors feature high ceilings and clerestory windows. Beck also installed an efficient chilled-water system with variable air volume air distribution.
"[We] strive to target sustainable principles for every project whether or not the client is actively pursuing LEED," Sierra says.
Beck Group has used 45 subcontractors and had roughly 150 workers on site at the peak of construction. The largest subcontractor is Century Mechanical Contractors, Fort Worth, which is performing HVAC and plumbing work. The Dallas office of BakerTriangle is handling the drywall and acoustical ceiling installation, and Ennis Steel Industries Inc., Ennis, Texas, fabricated the steel.
Sierra says the experimental nature of the project has presented opportunities for Beck Group. Because it was the Life School's first greenfield project of this size, the owner, designers and contractor had the flexibility to experiment with new materials and designs. For example, the architect specified composite carpet tiles and polished concrete throughout the school to better resist stains and keep maintenance costs down.
The project team also incorporated more flexibility into the student spaces. The library features movable presentation walls that allow it to double as a staff training area. The cafeteria has flexible space, and the gymnasium features a spacious lobby with 30-ft ceilings. It can also be used as an event space.
"It has been a learning process for the whole team," Sierra says. "[There isn't] a set of standards like you would have for a typical school. We were able to try new things with this project."
Other innovations began before the project broke ground. Construction is being funded through a financing mechanism new to Texas. Charter schools have historically been at a funding disadvantage in the state because they lack the capital and geographical tax base of independent school districts. That makes them riskier bets for investors and usually brings lower credit ratings.
Life School's B bond rating left it paying high interest rates until the state of Texas agreed in 2014 to guarantee charter school bonds through the $37.7-billion Permanent School Fund. That gave the project an AAA rating, which opened up access to lower-cost borrowing and improved its financial position. Life School's chief of staff, Scott Fuller, says the change significantly dropped borrowing costs and expanded funding for capital improvements and construction.
"It saved us roughly $13 million, and we were able to go out there and borrow up to $100 million, in part to refinance our debt and cover the costs of new projects, mainly the new school," says Fuller.
An increase in available funds and the needs of a growing school led to a number of changes in design and construction. Life School originally had a budget of $18 million, but Beck's master plan and preliminary program demonstrated that the budget was inadequate for a school of that size. Life School was able to use the master plan to achieve a larger bond package and nearly double the project's budget.
The school district has expanded to 5,000 students in 2014 from 266 students in 1998, so it also wanted a large campus that could serve even more students in the future.
