Sean C. Morgan
Contractor Gerding Builders is edging ever closer to completion of the Sweet Home Junior High project, and School District Maintenance Supervisor Josh Darwood believes the school will be ready when the next school year begins.
Much of the work is already done. Last week, Principal Colleen Henry and Vice Principal Mark Looney worked with the architects in checking and signing off on the work in the new school office area.
“It’s getting close,” Darwood said. The project is doing well although it’s had “little hiccups” here and there. “It looks really good.”
He has heard a lot of comments from people on the district’s planning committee “that the look and the feel far exceed what they expected.”
“We’re getting real close,” said Gerding Builders Supt. Waylon Lundin. “We have a little bit of siding at the cafeteria,” along with interior finish work in the vestibule and cafeteria.
A new wrestling mat hoist went in last week, Lundin said, and the gym is scheduled to get its new floor in a few weeks. Crews still need to apply anti-graffiti sealant in the gym and locker rooms.
“There have been some delays due to the pandemic,” he said. Sometimes, subcontractors arrive with full crews; at other times, their crews have been under quarantine.
An unfortunate side effect of the pandemic response has been no school, he said. That has allowed workers to move things into the school during the day rather than waiting until after school or weekends.
The downside to the response to COVID-19 for construction has been that crews are sometimes small, he said.
“Myself and my foreman are spending a lot of time making sure everything is sanitary,” Lundin said. They also make sure sanitizers are available in all of the construction equipment and around the site.
Gerding was originally supposed to finish in the spring, he said. At this point, the worst-case scenario is summer, when the district’s maintenance department moves in to remodel parts of the school for new uses.
The project, funded by a $4 million bond levy, a $4 million grant from the state and money from the district’s Long-Term Maintenance Fund, includes a new full-sized gymnasium, new locker rooms, a new school office, a new access-restricted vestibule, a new angled roof surface to provide drainage, new management of data cabling, a new cafeteria facing north across Husky Field and a new parking area allowing parent access to drop off and pick up students with a new bus loop separate from the parking lot.
“We’re still working on final numbers with the contractor for some work that was added, but I expect our cost will be close to the $11.5 million original contract,” said district Business Manager Kevin Strong.
Coming up, the district crew will abate asbestos floor tiles next month, Darwood said. Into the summer, district workers will remodel the old office and make it the school’s new “maker space” art room. Rooms 13 and 14 will be reconfigured for Basic Life Skills and a teacher’s work space and lounge.
In addition to completing the siding and paint, the district will complete landscaping although Gerding is preparing the landscaping spaces for the district, he said.
“We’re going to try to do it with the minimum amount of irrigation needed.”
“It should be done by the end of summer,” Darwood said. There might be a room left, but the school should be ready.
Early this school year, the district still had work at Holley and Foster elementary schools, including new lighting at Foster, siding and painting at both schools and some minor projects. Gerding completed $1.5 million grant-funded seismic upgrades at both schools. The district’s maintenance crew also completed substantial interior remodeling at both schools, with the addition of secure entrances.
Both of the schools are finished and functioning normally now, Darwood said, although Foster has a few little pieces of trim to finish in the office once the staff is out of the building for the summer.
Darwood said he isn’t worried about the junior high project running into the school year.
“We don’t have three schools this summer,” he said. “It makes it easier.”