Superintendent Phil Long of Medford School District in Oregon wanted to incorporate a sense of community when the district replaced the outdated 1930s-era South Medford High School. Mahlum Architects of Portland delivered with plans for an $82-million, 225,000-sq-ft, energy-efficient campus with 48 classrooms, 10 science rooms, 2,000-seat gym and modern theater. “It is a people-friendly building,” Long says of the new structure. “It’s flexible enough that if we change programming in the future, the physical spaces can accommodate new uses.” The 20-acre instructional campus is broken into four small learning communities, with a pair of two-story wings centered around a
Tight working footprints and even cozier timelines highlight the ongoing reconstruction of Issaquah High School in Washington as Bothell-based Cornerstone General Contractors pushes through its summer rush, striving to complete the school’s classroom and core areas in time for the return of students this fall. The $84-million transformation of the high school is the flagship project of a $241-million 2006 bond that includes work on more than a dozen Issaquah School District projects. It changes the high school from one built in the mold of 1960s open-circulation designs into a larger, low-impact, modern campus. The 285,000-sq-ft school is being built
School districts across the Northwest are committing to sustainability – not despite the economy, but in some cases because of it. div id="articleExtrasA" div id="articleExtrasB" div id="articleExtras" One such project is the $61.8-million Redmond High School in central Oregon. Skanska USA Building’s central Oregon office is the general contractor on the 276,000-sq-ft, two-story project. Redmond School District sees benefits to seeking LEED gold beyond environmental stewardship. “Sustainability means less operating costs,” says Jerry Milstead, construction project manager with the district. “If you look at K-12 throughout the U.S. and certainly in Oregon, that’s where the problem is: funds for operations.
Rural Alaska follows its own construction rules. Two new schools for the native Yupiit people are challenging the Anchorage-based building teams: kpb Architects and Neeser Construction, which are completing the $23.1-million, 41,491-sq-ft Marshall Replacement School, and Bering Pacific Corp., which is building the $20.9-million, 31,900-sq-ft Russian Mission Replacement School. Both schools are within 60 mi of each other along the Yukon River. “Like all Bush Alaska, everything you need, from a bolt to food to a Band-Aid, must be ordered six to eight months ahead of time to come in on a barge or you have to fly it in
Last year, construction teams broke ground on 30 large-scale projects across the Northwest totalling $4.5 billion of work. Some projects beginning in 2008 were also included if they weren’t included in last year’s Top Project Starts. One project, the $240-million Sea-Tac Airport Rental Car Facility, is actually the largest ‘re-start’, having shut down in 2008 and then restarted in summer 2009. Photo: CH2M HILL Spokane County Regional Water Reclamation Facility Related Links: Washington Oregon Alaska Rankings from the past five years, as well as an electronic version of this year’s, are available on our web site at www.northwest.construction.com The projects
Government projects—from prisons to new hospitals—have contractors sharpening their pencils and building in Alaska. “Things in Alaska are pretty good compared to the rest of the country,” says Chuck Wiegers, president of A&A Roofing Co. of Fairbanks and a board member and past chairman of Associated Builders and Contractors-Alaska Chapter. “A good part of the work is federal and state.” John MacKinnon, executive director of Associated General Contractors of Alaska in Anchorage, says he expects highway and civil construction will provide additional work during the next couple of years. He adds that the state has experienced a downturn in vertical
Despite the recession, there are some promising construction projects in Seattle, including renovation of Pike Place Market, an infill project in the Rainier Valley and new digs for Amazon.com. The huge headquarters projects for Amazon.com in the South Lake Union area and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation near Seattle Center hold about the only tower cranes on the skyline, which was crowded with them two years ago. Phase one of the $500-million Gates Foundation includes two six-story buildings totalling 900,000 sq ft, being constructed by Seattle-based Sellen Construction. The Seattle office of NBBJ designed the expected LEED gold first
A limited-access highway being built in north Spokane has received $35 million from a federal economic stimulus program that will pay for a 3.7-mi stretch of roadway and could generate up to 106 jobs. Photo: WSDOT Graham Construction and Management of Spokane is constructing a four-lane divided highway for U.S. 395 between U.S. 2 and Wandermere along with two bridges and an interchange as part of the North Spokane Freeway project. Here a crane lifts a spiral rebar cage into place to construct a pier. The North Spokane Corridor is expected to be a 60mph, 10.5-mi-long highway linking Interstate 90
The $119.9-million Nalley Valley project is designed to fix a pickle of a traffic bottleneck where Interstate 5 meets State Route 16 in South Tacoma. Contractor Guy F. Atkinson Construction, Renton, Wash., is replacing the original road structure that travels over the valley named for Nalley Inc., a Northwest food manufacturer that produces chili, pickles and other canned food. Photo: WSDOT Crews are in the process of setting girders on a new bridge connecting Interstate 5 to westbound SR 16 as part of the Nalley Valley project, which rebuilds one of Tacoma’s worst freeway traffic snarls exacerbated by vehicles having
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