Pool Construction Will Bring Noise, Traffic to Albany High Students and Neighbors in September

Get ready for a loud and busy time around Albany High School this fall.

Construction of two new Albany pools by the school is slated to begin in September just as the academic year gets underway, according to project manager David Burke of Bollo Construction, who addressed the Albany Unified School District Board of Education earlier this week.

"Active school site, traffic, tight quarters," he said, "it's going to be a challenge but we'll do it."

Burke said bids from contractors are due Aug. 17, and the board is scheduled to make the official decision at a special meeting Aug. 24. The district is required by law to give the project to the lowest bidder. Construction should follow within a few weeks, he said, and is scheduled to last 300 days.

"When will you see trucks, when will you see activity out on the site? That will be the middle of September," Burke told the board during a meeting Aug. 3. "We're starting to push the winter, so we need to begin construction as soon as possible."

The pool lot is on Portland Avenue, next to the high school's multi-purpose room and just south of the main campus.

The bids due Aug. 17 will not include a design for classrooms that are desperately needed to relieve overcrowding, which is a particular problem between classes as students move up and down the building's one main stairway.

A second round of bids will be solicited for classrooms, Burke said, and a different contractor will handle that part of the project. 

The classrooms also will involve a separate design review by the state, though Burke said the application process will be "more abbreviated" than the pool design review, which took nearly eight months.

He said breaking the project into two design review periods had always been part of the plan, and will not extend the construction timeline.

"We want the best possible classrooms we can afford," he said. "But until we open the bids on the pool project, we don't know how much we can afford."

The design and number of classrooms will depend on how much money is spent on the pool. A three-room "green" classroom complex will cost about $600,000, while standard portables will cost $350,000, Burke said.

The district has considered building two-story modular classrooms rather than a single story, officials said. No estimates were given at the meeting for how much those would cost, but board member Paul Black said it might come down to a choice between green classrooms or a two-story complex.

Burke said the construction climate continues to be "very favorable" and that he expects pool bids to be "very competitive."

Construction costs alone have been estimated to hit about $7.7 million, according to a December 2009 report prepared by a consultant. In the report, classrooms were estimated to cost $625,000.

Burke offered to take photographs of two-story portables near his home to show the board, and Vice President Pat Low said she'd like to see that. 

"I want to show you some real-world applications of two-story portables," Burke said. "Standard portables are boxes, so it's one box on top of another box. They can look ... not terribly visually exciting. It's something to keep in mind.... But they are very efficient with space."

When Measure E, to fund the pool, came before voters in early 2008, one of its campaign points was additional classroom space for the high school, which has been overcrowded for the last several years, with a student population of about 1,300.

During Tuesday's meeting, school board member David Glasser made a point to remind Burke that there needed to be "dialogue with the neighbors" so there was "no surprise when trucks start coming in at eight in the morning." 

The pool site is between the high school and Memorial Park, which now houses the Teen Center.

"We just need to make sure we're communicating with the neighbors and staff to make sure it's safe," Glasser said.

Burke, who's spent his entire career in school construction projects, assured the board that safety would be a priority.

The project to replace the former Albany pool with two new pools and add classroom space for the high school is being funded by Measure E, a $10 million bond measure voters approved in February 2008. After the recession and a troubled bond market pushed the district to delay the project, the Division of the State Architect approved a two-pool plan calling for an indoor and an outdoor pool. The plan envisions room for at least three classrooms, one of which is double-wide.

You can watch the meeting, and other archived school board meetings, by clicking here. (The pool discussion begins at the 1-hour mark.)