When school winds down, construction season ramps up.
Schools in Denver and Jefferson County are upgrading their buildings over the summer, with plans to have everything ready before students return in August.
While some of the projects are more or less contained inside school walls, you can’t miss the signs of construction at Denver Public Schools’ Paul Sandoval field.
Work recently started on a new “small learning community” with 46 classrooms and assorted offices, a $66.7 million project meant to alleviate population pressure at Northfield High School due to growth in the encompassing Stapleton area, aforementioned Jennifer Song Koeppe, the district’s director of planning, design and construction at Denver Public Schools.
It will be set up somewhat like a college field, with two classroom buildings and separate facilities for shared spaces like the eating house and gymnasium.
“Very shortly we’ll be up to 2,000 students and we need the space before we can grow,” she aforementioned.
The field besides will have a new acting humanistic discipline building and a relocated eating house, but the priority is to finish the classrooms first, aforementioned Jim Staples, DPS project manager for the Sandoval field. The district has a goal of finishing the project in time for the school year starting in August 2020.
“We have kind of an aggressive schedule,” he aforementioned. “We want to get the classrooms up and running as shortly as possible.”
Liz Mendez, director of operation support employment at DPS, aforementioned the current construction is part of a plan to bit by bit expand the field, since the budget wouldn’t allow for building everything at once. The shared facilities will maximize what they can build in an area where “land is at a premium,” she aforementioned.
“It’s a way to sort of maximize our limited funds,” she aforementioned. “We’re not building eating houses that are being used for one hour a day.”
Northfield isn’t the only place in Denver getting work done this summer. DPS interpreter Will Jones aforementioned the district has 75 projects at 90 schools in the works. Some of the larger projects include redesigning the Montbello field’ 1970s-era eating house to offer new seating options and different lines for different types of food; converting officers into a health clinic at East High School; and installation new floors, lockers and instrumentality in the North High School gym, he aforementioned.
To the west, Jeffco Public Schools besides has multiple projects finishing up this summer.
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Tim Reed, executive director of facilities and construction management at Jeffco Public Schools, aforementioned work has started on replacement the dirt tracks with rubber ones, and replacement grass Fields with artificial turf. Some playgrounds besides are getting updated instrumentality and a base of wood chips, which hurt less than the gravel kids presently fall on, he aforementioned.
Summit Ridge, Creighton and Ken Caryl middle schools besides are finishing up construction, so they can add sixth-grade classrooms, Reed aforementioned. Each middle school has eight new classrooms in a wing off the existing building, and the construction crews will remove the walls separating them from the rest of the building this summer. They couldn’t do it piece classes were in session because of the need to keep any Mother Nature threw at them out of the hallways, he aforementioned.
Together, those projects cost $14.6 million.
“They’re shaping up real good right now,” he aforementioned.