The Park City Board of Education held a special work session on Wednesday where consultants presented the details of costs, phasing, and impacts to students to implement more than $100 million in school building expansions under a new master plan.
More than three years after school district strategic and master planning efforts began, the Park City school board is making decisions. To implement the master planning recommendations, Park City High School, Ecker Hill Middle School, and all four elementary schools will require expansions.
The expansions will accommodate the master planning priorities: to move 9th grade into the high school and transition Ecker Hill into a 6th through 8th-grade middle school. Each elementary school will expand to allow universal pre-K, with two schools providing wrap-around services for after-school programming. The plan includes decommissioning Treasure Mountain Junior High School. The cost to demolish it is projected at about $6 million and would not be financed through a school bond.
MOCA consultant Dave Hart began his presentation with the Park City High School expansion. The cost estimate is about $59.2 million. The CTE and the daycare areas would be disrupted during the construction.
“With the exception of the area that we're demolishing, everything else in the high school probably continues to move forward,” he said. “We have looked at the duration of the construction, and we've tried to align that with pulling it back and making it work so that you're finishing the high school and the junior high at the same time."
Expanding Ecker Hill into a sixth through eighth-grade middle school is estimated to cost $36.8 million. It would include adding two wings and a gymnasium. Hart said construction noise would have some impact, but they'll use state-of-the-art sound barriers to offset disruptions.
"A little bit of remodeling that will happen within the cafeteria area and with that, what they're calling the maker space, just in that triangular space, so this does have some impact on the interior of the building, we'll have to try to work around that,” he said.
Hart said Jeremy Ranch and McPolin Elementary School could share architectural and design services. They would both have wraparound programming and added space for Pre-K. The Jeremy Ranch expansion comes in at $13.4 million, and McPolin would cost $13.2 million.
Parley's Park Elementary's cost projection is $12.7 million. Trailside Elementary School was the least expensive of the projects, with a cost estimate of $6.4 million.
Minimizing disruption to student activities, limiting construction duration, and incorporating green facility enhancements were integrated with the cost projections.
Hart said the cost per square foot for green enhancements is $75 added to the construction's base costs, architect's fees, furniture, fixtures, equipment, and other ownership costs. In total, costs would run $435 per square foot.
The estimated costs to expand six schools are $141.9 million. The total square footage comes in at 325,832 feet. The consultants recommend adding an overall contingency of 10% for unknowns.
During the work session, the school board advised the administration to begin the RFP process for architectural services for the high school remodel. Hart recommended the board act quickly on identifying an architect for both the high school and middle school projects.
Should the financing be established, the timeline for completing Ecker Hill Middle School and the High School could extend to July 2024. Hart said the Pre-K programs in the elementary schools could be ready to go by the summer of 2023.
The school board will consider financing options during its next regular meeting on April 20.
