Four School Buildings Need Seismic Retrofit

Some older buildings at Milpitas Unified ended up on a list kept by the state agency that oversees the structural safety of public school facilities.

The Milpitas buildings on the list were built before the '70s. Some were made with concrete tilt-up walls, a type of construction not expected to perform as well as other buildings in an earthquake, according to the California Division of the State Architect.

The Milpitas Unified School District hired a consultant for $13,500 last spring to evaluate the buildings in question under current building standards for seismic safety.

A structural engineer contracted by the district, Hohbach-Lewin Inc. in Palo Alto, examined the original building plans and made calculations according to the American Society of Civil Engineers Seismic Evaluation of Existing Buildings. The buildings were given a subjective rating of good, satisfactory, deficient, unacceptable and dangerous.

The buildings on the list include Rose Elementary, Russell Middle School, Milpitas High and one building in the Samuel Ayer Education Center, on the district campus.

At the school board meeting Tuesday, Dan Lewin, a structural engineer with Hohbach-Lewin Inc., presented the 150-page report with John Cimino, the district's director of maintenance operations and transportation.

Key findings were:

• Rose Elementary and Russell Middle School. All buildings on the list are evaluated as "satisfactory," and no further seismic retrofit is recommended at this time.

• Milpitas High gym, small gym and locker room. All three buildings need to strengthen the connections between the exterior walls and the roof. According to the report, "critical out-of-plane wall to roof connections were found to be substandard." 

• MUSD campus. One building. Similarly, the building that includes the  needs similar retrofitting to strengthen the connections between the exterior walls and roof.

The "deficient" evaluation for three Milpitas High buildings and one building on the district campus means the buildings could experience high levels of damage in a large earthquake, according to the report.

"In their current state, they do not provide levels of seismic resistance or occupant protection, which is roughly equivalent to buildings built to modern standards."

Next steps:

• Superintendent Cary Matsuoka said, "I think it's appropriate for us to respond and figure out the risk, what it's going to cost and the timing" to retrofit the buildings.

• The school board authorized a consultant to design upgrades and come up with an estimate. The board would discuss next steps at a future meeting date.

• John Cimino, director of maintenance, operations and transportation, estimated $200,000 for soft costs and structural upgrades. However, he said the state architect might have additional requirements for the older buildings, such as upgrading restrooms to Americans with Disabilities Act compliance that would increase overall project costs.

• Consultant Lewin said the district is not required to make the upgrades. It would be on a voluntary basis, he said, but the district should consider the risks.

"We all know a large earthquake is going to hit us someday in Milpitas; we don't know when," he said. "So that's why when I encounter these situations I recommend taking the action to mitigate the risk."