LYNNWOOD – Ten months after approving the money, voters will soon see signs of work on a new $90 million Lynnwood High School off North Road.
Fencing around the 40-acre site could pop up in the next few weeks.
Final designs will be submitted for permit review later this month.
Logging of the heavily wooded site is expected to begin in late January.
Bids will be advertised in February and a contractor should be on site by May.
“After the beginning of the year, people will see hopefully continual activity,” said Debra Born, the project manager.
A new Lynnwood High School was the cornerstone of the $140 million bond measure voters passed in February.
The school, which will be built for 1,600 students, is scheduled to open in fall 2009. About two-thirds of the cost of the $90 million project is construction.
The site is one mile east of the existing Lynnwood High School, near the Floral Hills Cemetery on the east side of I-5.
There are about 250 homes within 500 feet of the school property.
Many neighbors of the new school have been keeping close tabs on the building plans, particularly when it comes to traffic flow.
In general, it has been a tough market for school districts across the state, with construction costs rising rapidly.
“We are watching carefully the local market,” Born said. “We know that costs have climbed significantly in the last two to three years. We are being very cost conscious.”
The Snohomish and Granite Falls school districts have been dealing with that trend on high school construction projects, and schools statewide are trying to find $50 million to cover the gap between construction costs and initial estimates.
Born is warning neighbors that there will be a stretch of time after the logging is completed when the site will be hard to look at.
“Brace yourself,” she said. “It will be very bare and very rugged, but good things will come out of this.”
Some timber from the site will be used for benches, trim and interior paneling in the new school. The district estimates that it will make between $200,000 and $250,000 from harvesting the timber after logging and other costs are deducted.
Although much of the site will be cleared, some trees will be kept as buffers, particularly near a seasonal creek. There also will be a forested pathway.
The district will open the site for people to remove native plants, such as ferns, before the logging begins.
Reporter Eric Stevick: 425-339-3446 or stevick@heraldnet.com.
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