MARYSVILLE — With construction nearing 60 percent completion, Marysville Getchell High School remains on target to open a year ahead of schedule.
Many district officials expect the campus on the hill overlooking Marysville will be ready for the start of the next school year.
For now, it’s a bustling construction site where about 115 workers toil each day.
The campus will include five buildings. Four are small theme-based schools, each three stories tall. The fifth building is a two-story commons that will provide a gym and other physical education facilities, a cafeteria and other services.
“We are plugging along at a pace that will see completion by 2010,” said John Bingham, the district’s capital projects director. “I think we are going to make it.”
Marysville Getchell High School will include 193,000 square feet of building space designed for 1,600 students.
The four small schools that will be transplanted from Marysville-Pilchuck High School are the Academy of Construction and Engineering, Bio-Med Academy, International School of Communications and the School for the Entrepreneur.
Much of a recent media tour of the construction site was spent in Building D, future home of the International School of Communications, which is about 80 percent complete. Sheetrock is up and the building has been painted inside. Cabinets are arriving and carpeting is scheduled to be installed in December.
The buildings are being constructed sequentially and were started about 45 days apart.
The school also will include a track, practice football field, varsity soccer field, softball fields and eight tennis courts.
Money for the project comes from a $118 million school construction bond passed by district voters in 2006. Total project cost for Getchell is estimated to be $92.6 million with the state providing $19.4 million in matching money.
“We remain on budget,” Bingham said.
Tough economic times have helped keep costs down with competitive bids from companies hungry for work. The district has saved more than $2 million from projected costs in landscaping, paving, road construction and other costs.
Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446, stevick@heraldnet.com.
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