Gilroy
– More than $63 million in construction and improvements at
Eliot Elementary and Gilroy High schools remains on track, despite
recent rainfall that made for some muddy, messy construction
sites.
Gilroy – More than $63 million in construction and improvements at Eliot Elementary and Gilroy High schools remains on track, despite recent rainfall that made for some muddy, messy construction sites.
At the new Eliot Elementary School, approximately five acres on the corner of Seventh and Chestnut streets, workers have finished laying underground infrastructure such as electrical lines and plumbing. Framing for all the buildings is under way, as is grading for the south parking lot adjacent to Old Gilroy Street. Soon, the roof will be placed on the main classroom building, which will allow work to begin on the building’s interior.
When complete, the new school will include 22 classrooms, four kindergarten classrooms, a multipurpose room, a library and multimedia center, administrative offices and a kitchen. Because of the small size of the campus, the school will feature a two-story building – a first for the district.
Rain has forced workers to take about eight days off since the project broke ground in late June, said Jeff Lee, project manager with S.J. Amoroso that is building the school. Another storm is predicted to arrive today.
“Rainy days are usually days we can’t work,” he said. “The buildings get water in them, and it gets muddy.”
Even so, Lee said, the crew still manages to do lighter work at the site when it’s raining. Workers and project managers tune in regularly to forecasts, Lee said, and prepare the site by laying rocks to prevent excessive mud.
“They’re really enthusiastic about getting it done on time. It’s good to see them making an effort like that,” Lee said.
Workers were given a one-year time frame to construct the $13.85 million school. This school year, Eliot’s roughly 400 kindergarten through fifth-grade students are being taught at Ascencion Solorsano.
Space is tight with both groups of students in one school, but Charlie Van Meter, GUSD’s director of facilities and maintenance operations, said the new school will be ready this summer for teachers to move in and prepare their classrooms.
“Eliot is on track to be completed and opened for the start of the school year,” he said.
Van Meter said the same good news is true for construction work at Gilroy High School – for the most part. A three-month hang-up from California’s Division of the State Architect, which oversees design and construction for K–12 schools and community colleges, delayed work on the high school’s student center. Van Meter said the project should be done by October or November.
Construction and facility upgrades in the district are paid for through different state restricted funds, meaning the monies can only be used for certain purposes. The $69 million Measure I, passed in November 2002, can only be used for new construction. Funds for modernization are restricted to fix up buildings and infrastructure on buildings that are 25 years or older. Deferred maintenance funds can only be used to maintain buildings. Most of the district’s recent projects, including Eliot and improvements to the high school, are paid for through Measure I.
The roughly $10.2 million student center, a two-year project, will include a cafeteria, a state-of-the-art kitchen, and indoor and covered outdoor seating with capacity for 1,000. Currently, the high school’s 2,500 students do not have a cafeteria or indoor eating area and congregate in classrooms and the gym on rainy days.
The 10,000-square-foot building will stand on the southwest end of the quad in the center of campus and also will house student services, including counselors and the Associated Student Body office.
A roughly 4-foot glass area in the building will be etched with both the Garlic Festival and the high school’s logos in recognition of a $250,000 donation from the festival’s association in July.
Work to remodel the high school’s aquatics center is under way and should be complete by February or March, Van Meter said. Expansion of the library, multimedia learning center and computer lab will be completed as planned by spring. Ten modular classrooms are being constructed to accommodate the school’s projected growth.
Work to modernize the school’s classrooms, labs, theater, music room and staff area has been completed.
“We’ve got quite a bit of work done,” Van Meter said. “The rain slows everything down, but there’s not much you can do about that. You can’t stop the rain.”
More district facility projects
Project Scheduled completion
• Upgrades to library and multimedia
center and improving parking flow
at South Valley Middle School August 2006
• Add multipurpose rooms and upgrading
libraries and multimedia centers at
Glen View and El Roble elementary schools August 2006
• Add new multipurpose room with
food services and modernize classrooms at
Rucker Elementary School August 2008
