'Setting the stage'Architects provide feedback on school facility proposals

MOSES LAKE — The picture surrounding each facility proposal commissioned by the Moses Lake School District Board of Directors earlier this year became substantially more clear Thursday evening.

Along with district administrators, the board met with two representatives of NAC Architecture Thursday during a three-hour public study session to look at its three bond proposals. Since being hired by the district in April for pre-bond planning and support services, NAC assessed each of the board’s facility ideas for their feasibility, estimated costs, and other important factors for consideration.

In January, the board commissioned the following three preliminary ideas for school facilities to be included on a bond that the district will run in February 2017: expanding Moses Lake High School (MLHS) with an additional classroom wing and more commons space, constructing a new 1,600-student high school, and constructing an 1,600-student junior high school to house grades eight and nine. The board acknowledged that additional elementary space is needed no matter what, so no matter which proposal is selected to run on the bond, each would be accompanied by funding for at least one new elementary school.

At Thursday’s study session Steve McNutt and Brent Harding, partners at NAC, presented their assessments of each option. McNutt said their presentation was a “work in progress” based on feedback they had received and continue to receive. Their work included suggestions for each proposal — nothing is finalized into the facility plans as the board continues to determine what the community will support on the 2017 bond.

McNutt said their presentation Thursday focused on objective information and estimations for each idea — the physical outcomes, estimated costs and longevity of each. He said there are many other pros and cons to be considered for each, but those were up to the School Board and the Moses Lake community to deliberate on.

“We are just sort of setting the stage for all of the input that is going to be needed to really find out what’s the best one in the lineup,” McNutt said.

Following are NAC’s findings for each facility option in terms of their constructional viability.

MLHS addition

McNutt and Harding presented to the board some rough drawings of what they and a team of partners at NAC conceptualized for a MLHS addition.

Their suggestions included the construction of a two-story classroom wing on the southwest portion of the high school that could house about 800 students, expanding the commons and administrative office space, building a third gym that could house the entire 2,500-student capacity (and eliminating the portables), and adding an appendage to the music department.

The preliminary suggestions from NAC also included expanded parking that would likely require the displacement of the northernmost softball field farther south on the school grounds, as well as expanded parking on the west end of the grounds (where the agriculture patch is now, which would be displaced elsewhere).

The two-story classroom addition would house about 40 classrooms and altogether, the project would increase the high school’s design capacity from 1,600 to 2,500 students.

Another suggestion in NAC’s presentation included expanding the theater’s capacity from 500 to between 700 and 800 by potentially adding a balcony, so a quarter of the high school’s population could fit at one time.

McNutt and Harding said since the work is so preliminary, some of the spaces could be altered for other purposes and elements of the project could be changed, but they believed the project to be viable. Prompted by a question from the board, McNutt said “we have convinced ourselves that this is a viable option.”

A new high school

The details presented by Harding and McNutt on the new high school proposal were fewer in number. They presented sketches of facility layouts on two prospective sites, but the location and certain details of those sites could not be disclosed during the public session because the district is in ongoing real estate negotiations for the sites.

The first site was a potential 60-acre site. The preliminary sketches included plenty of acreage designated for Title 9 field space, student and staff parking, and potential bus loops. The second sketch included very similar components on a slightly smaller 55-acre plot. McNutt and Harding said they had concluded that both sites were viable options for constructing a new 1,600-student high school.

8-9 facility

The constructional viability of this proposal, as well as its sketches, closely resembled those for the new high school project. Using the same two potential school sites, McNutt and Harding presented layouts for an junior high school campus for grades eight and nine.

The major differences, they said, is that for the 8-9 campus, there is no need for student parking, and less acreage is needed overall for development. McNutt said 30 to 35 acres of development is a reasonable target for that type of project, which would leave acreage on both sites that could be purposed for other needs. The district’s board and administrative team talked about the possibility of locating an elementary school — which requires about 10 acres — on the remaining undeveloped land in that scenario.

Again, the NAC partners said this, structurally speaking, is another viable facility option.

Cost and longevity

After covering the physical details of each proposal, McNutt and Harding dove into the estimated financials and, of equal importance, the longevity of each option — how long each would last before growth catches up.

McNutt made a very important distinction early on — no matter which facility is built, eventually it will fill up. But some options will put off that reality further into the future than others.

“Whatever you build, you are going to grow into and grow out of in some point in time,” he said. “So it’s certainly a bang-for-your-buck question.”

Following are the cost estimates that the community would be responsible for in each project, as laid out in NAC’s presentation. The estimations have already accounted for about $9.5 million in state match funding.

MLHS addition: about $64 million

New high school: about $99 million

8-9 facility: about $84 million.

New elementary school: approximately $20 million.

The new high school and 8-9 school project cost estimations don’t include any dollars for renovations to MLHS, which the board unanimously agreed would be necessary. The NAC representatives indicated that would cost an additional $10 to $14 million.

The cost is only half the story. The other half is how long each facility would last before reaching its capacity.

According to enrollment growth projections presented by NAC, the firm estimated that the MLHS addition project, which would up the school’s capacity to 2,500 students, would meet design capacity by the year 2033. By 2043, the school is forecast to house about 2,800 students, and the district would be “in the same fishbowl you’re in now,” McNutt said. So between 2033 and 2043, the district would have to take measures it is taking now — extended day at the high school, portable additions, etcetera.

The construction of a new high school, according to enrollment projections, is a “very long term solution,” McNutt said. He said both high schools in the city wouldn’t be at capacity until 2055 according to growth projections. School Board president Kevin Donovan noted that the bond would be paid off in 2037, before the school has even met its capacity.

As for the 8-9 school construction project, McNutt and Harding said the numbers are “not very encouraging” in terms of longevity. Their presentation showed that with this course of action, MLHS would exceed its design capacity (1,600) on Day 1, even after pulling the ninth grade class out of the building. The “red line” — where the high school is in the situation it is now again — is the year 2032.

Feedback

The board discussed the information provided by NAC for about an hour at the tail end of Thursday’s forum, but it will be gathering feedback from the public on the proposals at three community symposiums in June.

District Superintendent Michelle Price said the board and the community basically have three options on the table in terms of the cost and longevity of the proposals.

“This gives us an opportunity to say ‘do we want to be full the day we move in, do we want to have some capacity for a time after we move in, or do we want to put a little more money up front and have a longer period of time before the community ever has to ask the question again,” Price said.

McNutt and Harding, from NAC, will be on hand at the symposiums in June to present the information to community members as they did to the School Board Thursday. The public will have the chance to view their preliminary sketches for facility layouts, cost estimates and other information at those times. Attendees will also have the opportunity to ask questions and provide their thoughts and comments to the School Board.

The symposium dates and locations are:

June 7 from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Moses Lake Civic Center auditorium.

June 9 from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. at the Moses Lake Civic Center auditorium.

June 11 from 9 to 11 a.m. at Columbia Basin Technical Skills Center.

Ryan Minnerly can be reached via email at countygvt@columbiabasinherald.com.