Scotts Valley school officials, energized by the approval of a $9 billion school construction bond by state voters last week, expect to begin demolition of the old Middle School gym next summer.
Scotts Valley Schools Superintendent Tanya Krause said in an interview this week that in December the district will be moving six portable classroom buildings and physical education lockers to the other side of the Scotts Valley Drive campus so site work can begin on the long-awaited $40 million reconstruction project.
Students will come back to school in January to the same classrooms, but in a different location.
Several new portable classrooms began to be assembled last month in what was the site of outdoor basketball courts at the south end of the campus.
Krause said she is confident the district will gain state approval of its plans and get $5.755 million of the state bond money. That money won’t arrive until 2018, but she said the district has been told it will be eligible for an additional $1.36 million in “seismic funding” from the state, money that could be available next summer to get the gym project underway.
The district is prepared to obtain “bridge” financing to pay for the first construction phases if needed, in anticipation of the state funds. It also will begin issuing bonds that voters had approved in 2013 for the project.
The state bond money approval removes what was perhaps the district’s biggest hurdle in the project, a $7 million gap between $33 million approved by Scotts Valley voters, and the actual estimated cost of the project.
Krause also said she is optimistic that the district will get approval for its solution to the other big hurdle in the project, a little endangered beetle that lives at the site.
She said the district is likely to have to spend up to $450,000 to preserve a habitat for the Mount Hermon June Beetle, or polyphylla barbata, a little scarab whose only habitat in the world is Scotts Valley and the sandhills around the Zayante Creek watershed.
She is hopeful that the district’s plans for the beetle will be approved in April, so construction plans awaiting approval can get on a fast track.
Architects and school officials are still pointing towards a late 2018 completion date for the entire project, which means that current fifth graders could start in new middle school classrooms as early as next fall, and current third graders could see an entirely new Middle School campus by the middle of their sixth grade year.
Krause also said she will have new Requests for Proposals for a general contractor on the December agenda of the district’s Board of Trustees meeting, so it can be selected as early as February. Under new state rules, the district may pick a contractor that offers the “best-value” and not just the lowest price.
Construction delays in the Middle School project had been a hot topic in the recent school board election, and the project has been a high priority for Krause since she began superintendent in July.
