GILROY
– Monday morning, the
”
G
”
building at Gilroy High School will be bulldozed to the ground
to make way for a 30,000-square-foot student center.
GILROY – Monday morning, the “G” building at Gilroy High School will be bulldozed to the ground to make way for a 30,000-square-foot student center. Yesterday, the aquatics building came down and a new one will be ready by the start of the school year. The welding shop stands gutted: Students will have four new classrooms this fall for $900,000.
Few Gilroy Unified School District campuses this summer are not having some major facilities improvements. When the school board awarded roughly $30 million in projects earlier this month, many of the bids actually came in below estimates, thanks to a favorable bid climate.
In fact, all were below estimates – the GHS student center was $450,000 less than expected – with the exception of work at Rucker Elementary. That will cost $112,000 more, which Charlie Van Meter, GUSD’s director of facilities, planning and construction, says is due to more requirements from the fire department for the school’s fire suppression system.
At GHS, 2004-05 construction is having such an impact that the 2004-05 GHS yearbook will have a “from blueprints to footprints” theme to follow the construction through the summer and school year, Construction Manager Jan Jensen said.
Seven portable classrooms now sit on the basketball courts on the south end of campus. They will hold students displaced by the demolition of the G building. Not far away, a new bus turnaround that will be used by athletic teams already is finished. There was an unexpected amount of groundwater in the area once digging began, which had to be filled with rock, costing $60,000 in contingency funds, Jensen said.
The library and bookroom expansion, which will double the size of the existing building, is underway. Widening of the parking lot entrance/exit will begin shortly, making it three lanes rather than two.
Eliot Elementary School’s Seventh Street campus is completely cleared and ready for construction on the new two-story, $14.5 million classroom building to begin. Four of the school’s portable classrooms went to El Portal Leadership Academy and the other five were donated. The Health Trust facility – where low-income children are provided medical services – was moved to South Valley.
Last week at El Roble, six old portable classrooms were demolished. New classrooms will be built this summer.
“These portables that are being replaced were actually scheduled to be replaced two years down the road, but if we wait until after the multipurpose room is in, we won’t be able to get them out – well, we’ll be able to get them in, but we can’t get the new ones in,” said Gary Corlett, a construction manager.
Construction on El Roble’s $3.7 million multipurpose room will start later this summer and continue through the school year.
The same applies to Glen View’s multipurpose room, a $4.1 million project. Eight portables are being demolished and replaced at the Eighth Street school.
The GUSD school board awarded South Valley’s summer work Thursday night to Kase Pacific, of Santa Cruz. The $769,300 project includes replacing concrete and landscaping in the quad and renovating the library.
Construction on Rucker’s modular classroom building got a late start in April. The building, which will provide six classrooms and bathrooms, would normally be a six-month project. Double the number of workers are now doing tasks at the same time, rather than consecutively, to make up time and plan on an Aug. 18 completion, Corlett said.
For more information on Gilroy High School construction, visit www.gilroyhighschool.com.
