Garco Construction Inc., of Spokane, has been selected as the general contractor-construction manager on the $54 million planned expansion and renovation of Rogers High School, in northeast Spokane.


In that role, Garco will provide pre-construction services, construction-management services, and act as the general contractor on the project, says Mark Anderson, Spokane Public Schools associate superintendent of school support services.


The school district has agreed to pay Garco a $1.3 million construction-management fee and $690,000 for preconstruction services, which primarily involve working with the projects architect, Northwest Architectural Co., of Spokane, during the design process on whether design and engineering ideas are constructible, Anderson says. It later will get a yet-to-be-determined construction contract.


Design work is expected to be completed early next year, and construction at Rogers will start in spring 2006. Before Garco breaks ground on the project, it and the school district will negotiate a maximum price for construction work, Anderson says. Those negotiations wont take place for a number of months, but construction is expected to account for roughly $40 million of the overall project cost.


The project involves renovating the original three-story high school building and tearing down and replacing newer, connected building wings and nearby structures. Aside from the main structure, the only building that wont be demolished is a practice gymnasium that was constructed in 2000, Anderson says.


When completed, the school will have a total of 250,000 square feet of floor space, about 65,000 more than it has currently.


The school will continue to operate during construction, which will be handled in phases. The entire project is scheduled to be completed before the 2008-2009 school year, but new facilities will be in use as they become available, he says.


The Rogers project is one of 18 in the state that are part of a pilot project in which the builder is being selected through the general contractor-construction manager alternative, rather than the design-bid-build process otherwise mandated by law, Anderson says. The main difference between the two methods is that in the pilot project, a contractor is evaluated on qualification and price, rather than strictly by low bid.


The Shadle Park High School replacement project, for which design work is scheduled to start next year, also is expected to be bid as a general contractor-construction management project as part of the same state pilot program.