Hercules' Oldest Public School Gets New Digs

Three and a half months of construction has given something it’s been lacking for the past 20 years—new facilities.

Construction, which on August 1, has already yielded new basketball and volleyball courts. A playground has also been completed and is awaiting the installation of a rubber foundation before children can use it.

“We have erected a temporary playground basketball hoop, volleyball court and a play-structure,” said Amanco Inc. project engineer Marcus Blackmon, whose company is one of two construction management firms that is overseeing the first two phases of the school’s construction. “The basketball and volleyball courts are functional.”

The construction process for the new facilities may take as long as four years to complete. The project is divided into four phases, the first two of which were designed by Oakland-based architectural firm Powell & Partners, Architects, are managed by Amanco and SGI, and are being contracted through Zovich Construction.

The duration of the construction for phases one and two will be approximately 720 days. Construction will include what Blackmon referred to as building A, a two story facility that will house administrative offices and rooms, as well as building B, which is a single-story unit that will house new classrooms.

Phases three and four will be designed by another architect, and may take more than 720 days to finish. However, the bulk of construction for the third and fourth phase will not begin until the first and second phases are completed.

“Construction can be finished either before or after the projected 720 days,” Blackmon said. “Most likely it will be after. The first phase will take approximately 400 days to complete. Then there are days allocated for items to be corrected, and the contractor has so many days to fix any outstanding issues with the facilities and their work.”

The buildings created during the first two phases are being built on the western side of Ohlone’s campus, which is adjacent to Turquoise Drive. It will include infrastructure and accessibility for handicapped students and for current technological applications found in classrooms.

After the first two phases are finished, the students and faculty will be moved into the new facilities and construction will begin on phases three and four.

“We’ve cleared the site, built up the building pads and done the underground utilities for the first two buildings,” Blackmon said. “We’ve trenched four footings and poured the concrete for building B. We anticipate pouring it for building A in the next two weeks.”

After all four phases are finished, Ohlone will have more facilities than it presently does, including a playground, track, tetherball area, multi-purpose room, gymnasium, kitchen, and ancillary facilities.