$48.5M contract awarded for new Lakewood High

Published 8:04 pm Tuesday, March 8, 2016

LAKEWOOD — The Lakewood School Board has approved a $48.5 million contract to build a new high school by September 2017.

The board last week voted to hire Allied Construction Associates Inc. Allied submitted the lowest bid of seven options reviewed by district leaders. The next lowest bid was about half a million dollars higher.

Construction is set to begin right away. Builders have access to the site starting this week.

“That doesn’t mean that they’ll be actually digging holes, but they’ll begin to put up fencing and secure the site,” Superintendent Michael Mack said.

The plan is to build the new high school just south of the existing school, on the same land. After the new school opens in fall 2017, the old building is supposed to be torn down. Practice fields and some parking are planned where the current high school stands.

Voters in the Lakewood School District passed a $66.8 million bond in April 2014 to pay for the project. The money originally was meant to overhaul the high school, but the school board decided to build a new school since doing so fit into the bond amount. The construction contract accounts for the bulk of the bond money. The rest has gone toward designing the high school, studying the site, getting permits and other preparation work.

The new high school is expected to be about 160,000 square feet and hold up to 825 students, about 100 more than the current enrollment. The existing school, which opened in 1983, is about 89,000 square feet. That doesn’t include seven portables that have been added.

Designs call for a tall, glass main entryway at the new school and a limited number of entrances and exits. There are 45 doors in the current building, which makes it hard to control access for student safety, Mack said. The new building is designed to have safety gates, too, which can lock down separate wings of the school.

There will also be an auxiliary gym and a practice room for gymnastics and wrestling, more than doubling the indoor space for sports. Sketches show a larger cafeteria and a new performing arts center that could be used for community events as well as drama and music classes.

Floor plans also feature classrooms built for specific subjects, such as larger science rooms, an art room with a design studio and kiln, and a fabrication lab with space for computer-aided design and drafting.

Students and families should expect some disruptions during the construction, Mack said. Several spring sports, including tennis, soccer and track and field, are going to use practice fields at other schools this season. A new track and field should be done by Aug. 1, a year before the rest of the new school is complete, Mack said.

The school’s greenhouse also needs to be torn down to make way for construction work, so the horticulture class plans to focus on landscaping and outdoor gardening for a while.

“The biggest impact on us, though, is transportation,” Mack said. “Where the new school sits, it encroaches on the area for our bus turnaround and our drop-off and pick-up.”

District officials are working out where to route buses and cars during the heaviest construction. Mack asked for patience during the next year and a half of work.

“There will be a number of construction trucks coming and going. They will probably experience some slowdown around the school,” he said. “Please be patient because in the end it will be worth it to have a community school that really represents the area.”

The Lakewood School District serves students in parts of Marysville, Arlington and Stanwood. More information about the new high school is online at lwsd.wednet.edu.

Kari Bray: 425-339-3439; kbray@heraldnet.com.