Ned Wendle, Mead School District’s director of facilities and planning, says the widespread voter approval of school bond measures two years ago was analogous to unbending a knot in a twisted yard hose with the water turned on high.

“Bonds were being rejected for years, when finally, communities saw just how badly they were needed. By voting, ‘yes,’ they untied the hose and water is now spraying everywhere in the form of new construction. For us, our pent-up demand lies in our growth,” Wendle says.

Spokane County voters approved 18 of 21 K-12 school ballot measures in February 2015, and school districts have been soliciting and accepting bids since then. The capital projects that have been completed, or are planned or under way, exceed an estimated $850 million in value. 

At the higher education level, demolition is well under way at Eastern Washington University for renovation of the Pence Union Building. The renovation is expected to cost $35 million and is scheduled to be completed in fall 2018, says Dave Meany, media relations director at EWU.

Meanwhile, at Gonzaga University, construction is underway on the $24 million Volkar Center for Athletic Achievement in front of the Martin Centre. The three-story facility will have a basketball court, strength-and-conditioning areas for the university’s basketball teams, nutrition and social space, and academic support services for all student-athletes.

ALSC Architects PS, of Spokane, is the project architect on the athletic center, and Garco Construction Inc., of Spokane, is the general contractor.

In the Spokane School District, capital projects director Greg Forsyth says three major projects will be completed this year. Spokane voters approved a $145 million bond in 2015 to finance capital projects through 2021. The projects range in value from $4.5 million for future classroom additions at Lewis & Clark High School on the lower South Hill to the $37 million Salk Middle School replacement in northwest Spokane.

A $17.5 million modernization at North Central High School, at 1600 N. Howard, that includes construction of a new cafeteria and commons building that connects new and older parts of the school will wrap up this fall. Graham Construction Inc., of Spokane, is the general contractor.

The project’s second phase, modernizing the current commons building for additional space, will be finished near the end of this year, Forsyth says.

Also wrapping up this year will be the second phase at Salk Middle School, at 6411 N. Alberta. The new 100,000-square-foot replacement school will be located south of the existing school. The estimated construction cost is $26 million. Garco Construction is the general contractor-construction manager, or GC/CM, for the project.

“Salk will open in August,” Forsyth says. “Everything will be ready except for the fields and the parking lot, because we’re going to begin tearing down the old building in the fall.”

Another Spokane Public Schools project ending this fall, Forsyth says, is an eight-classroom addition at Mullan Road Elementary School, at 2616 E. 63rd. ALSC Architects PS, of Spokane, is the project architect, and Halme Construction Inc., of Davenport, is the general contractor

Forsyth says Spokane Public Schools’ next big project will involve building a new Franklin Elementary School on the South Hill, at 2627 E. 17th.  ALSC is the project architect, and Garco is the GC/CM.

The $26 million Franklin project will update the original structure and replace nine portable classrooms with a 17,000-square foot addition to bring the school up to the district’s new standard elementary school size of 65,000 square feet, he says.

Franklin was constructed in the Lincoln Heights area in 1909 and was expanded in 1953. Project construction is scheduled to start in June and expected to take 14 to 16 months to complete. “We’re going to put the students in the old Jefferson school until Franklin is complete,” Forsyth says.

Design work currently is under way for a new Linwood Elementary School, located at 906 W. Weile in north Spokane. The full replacement is expected to cost $22.5 million. Linwood rests on enough property that students will remain in the current 45,000-square-foot building while the new facility is being built, Forsyth says.

Spokane-based Integrus Architecture PS is designing the new Linwood school, and construction is scheduled to begin in 2018, he says.

The Central Valley School District currently has more than a half-dozen school projects either under way or that are nearly finished.

That’s a significant increase from a school district that hadn’t passed a bond measure since 1998. In 2015, district voters passed a $121.9 million bond for new construction and renovations.

“This has been a complete game changer for us. This changes the landscape of the Central Valley School District for the student educationally and for the teacher instructionally,” says school district superintendent Ben Small.

After securing its bond dollars, the CV district was eligible to apply for, and received, a $20.9 million Class Size Reduction Grant. Such grant funding is made available to school districts across the state to help alleviate overcrowded classrooms, Small says.

At Central Valley, district voters two years ago approved a $121.9 million bond measure. Combined with $63.7 million funding from the state, and a construction grant of $19.2 million for new projects starting in 2015, the district now has a total construction budget of $225.7 million, Small says. 

Legislative recommendations seeking to improve the educational experience for students by reducing classroom sizes, and the implementation of day-long kindergarten, have strained Central Valley’s resources, he says.

“Facilitieswise, we were way behind with aging buildings. And we’ve been growing on average between 250 to 300 students per year for a few years now. It was having an impact on enrollment and busing,” says Small, whose district now has 13,500 students, up from 10,650 students in the 2002-03 school year.

Construction will soon start on a new North Pines Middle School, at 701 N. Pines in Spokane Valley. The school will have 85,800 square feet of floor space with a planned enrollment of 600 students.

The estimated construction cost is $27.5 million. Construction is scheduled to start in May and to end in August 2018. ALSC is the project architect, and Garco is the GC/CM.

Central Valley also will soon break ground on Riverbend Elementary School, which will be built at 17720 E. Mission in Spokane Valley.

Construction of the $16 million, 58,000-square-foot school is expected to be completed in July 2018. MMEC Architecture & Interiors, of Spokane, is the project architect, and a general contractor had yet to be determined at the time the Journal went to press.

The district recently completed renovation and expansion projects at Mica Peak High School and Central Valley Early Learning Center at 15111 E. Sprague, which formerly was known as Barker High School.

Spokane-based NAC Architecture PS served as the architect and T.W. Clark Construction LLC was the general contractor for the $10.2 million Mica Peak project. 

Similar projects at Chester Elementary School, at 3525 S. Pines Road, and Opportunity Elementary School, at 1109 S. Wilbur Road, are expected to wrap up this summer and December, respectively.

Architects West Inc., of Coeur d’Alene, designed the $20.2 million Chester project, and Spokane Valley-based Lydig Construction Inc. is the GC/CM. ALSC designed Opportunity—a $21.6 million project—and WLK Joint Ventures, a Spokane-based partnership of Walker Construction Inc., and Leone & Keeble Inc., is the GC/CM.

A new Liberty Creek Elementary School, at 23909 E. Country Vista Drive, is expected to be completed next July, along with renovation and expansion projects at Evergreen Middle School, located at 14221 E. 16th, and Greenacres Elementary, at 17915 E. Fourth.

MMEC Architecture & Interiors, of Spokane, is the project architect for the $20.9 million Liberty Creek project and T.W. Clark is the general contractor. ALSC designed Evergreen, and Garco is the GC/CM on the $32.1 million project. Architects West designed Greenacres, and Lydig is the GC/CM on that $21.5 million project.

Marla Nunberg Genther, the CV district’s spokeswoman, shares the story of what school district officials executed at the beginning of 2016 to prepare for heavy construction activity carrying into 2017.

“In January and February of last year, we moved staff and student populations from five different schools in a five-weekend span to begin preparations for construction projects. It was like moving puzzle pieces and it went off without any problems,” says Nunberg Genther.

Central Valley’s school board now says it plans to ask voters to extend the $121.9 million bond—at its current tax rate—with another bond election next year. If such a measure were successful, it would extend further into the future the date for when the debt would be paid off.

In December, Central Valley’s school board voted to include construction of a third comprehensive high school, a new middle school, and the renovation and expansion of Horizon Middle School as projects that would be financed by a new bond measure.

At Mead, construction of a new $29 million Northwood Middle School began during the last quarter of 2016 and will continue through next year. The new school is being built south of the current 56-year-old facility at 13120 N. Pittsburg. ALSC designed the new school, and Garco is the general contractor.

A roughly 16,000-square-foot portion of the current school building will be upgraded and will become part of the new school. The main gym, auxiliary gym, and choir and band rooms will remain with the new construction. The new building will include about 118,000 square feet of space, Wendle says.

Once the new structure is completed, classroom space in the current Northwood building could host students from Midway and Shiloh Hills elementary schools temporarily as those schools undergo modernization projects. 

Midway is located at 821 E. Midway Road in Colbert, and Shiloh Hills is at 505 E. Stonewall. Both buildings are 34 years old.

MMEC Architecture & Interiors, of Spokane, is the project architect for both moderniziations, and Bouten Construction Co., also of Spokane, is the GC/CM at Midway. A contractor hasn’t been named for the Shiloh Hills project.

Meanwhile, projects creating single-entry access for improved safety will occur this year at Colbert, Farwell, and Meadow Ridge elementary schools, at Mountainside Middle School, and at both Mead and Mt. Spokane high schools, Wendle says. 

He says the Mead School District, for the first time in its history, surpassed the 10,000-student enrollment mark at the beginning of the current school year. Voters approved a $69.5 million bond measure in February 2015. At the K-12 level, Wendle says moving to all-day kindergarten put more strain on school facilities.

“We’re at an annual growth rate of anywhere from 175 to 250 students, and the last new facility we added was in 2004,” Wendle says.

In addition to the planned athletic center, Gonzaga University plans to break ground this spring on the $30 million Myrtle Woldson Performing Arts Center, made possible by a $55 million donation from the late Myrtle Woldson, the largest gift in the university’s history.

The estimated 57,550-square-foot, two-story building is expected to be finished by winter of 2018. The building and the Jundt Art Center and Museum will serve as the linchpins of an arts village on the west side of campus, and will anchor programs in music, theater, dance, and the visual arts.

The new performing arts center will feature a 750-seat performance theater, a 150-seat recital hall for music and dance, a two-story lobby with box office, and dedicated space for instruction and projects, encompassing a variety of arts and disciplines.

The orchestra pit will be designed to rise to create a thrust stage area or descend for an orchestra during a musical or dance production. The second floor will include a multipurpose design and interdisciplinary arts studio. 

Pfeiffer Partners, of Los Angeles, is the lead architect for the facility with Bernardo Wills Architects PC, of Spokane.

Also, last year, Gonzaga trustees approved a $12.3 million investment to construct a new Jesuit Residence. Bernardo Wills Architects PC of Spokane is the project architect.

Gonzaga has raised in excess of $212 million from more than 30,000 contributors since launching a $250 million fundraising campaign in fall 2015.

At Washington State University Spokane, Garco has started work on the University District Gateway Bridge on the southern edge of the campus. The $15.4 million bridge will offer a connection between the U District and the East Sprague neighborhood. The project is scheduled to be completed in 2018.

Near the north landing of the bridge, Jensen Byrd Development LLC plans to redevelop the historic former Jensen-Byrd warehouse building and surrounding properties as a $45-million plus, 300,000-square-foot mixed-use complex.

Developers say they’ve nearly completed ground lease negotiations with Washington State University, which owns the 108-year-old former Jensen-Byrd building.

The Jensen Byrd complex, located at 131 E. Main on the south side of the WSU Spokane campus, includes the historic, six-story Jensen-Byrd Building and attached structures on three parcels totaling 4.1 acres of land.