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- [00:02]
A
You're listening to ASBO International's School Business Insider. I'm your host, John Brucato. Each week on School Business Insider, I sit down with school business officials and industry experts from around the world to share their stories and explore the topics that matter most to you. Find out what it means to be a school business official and get your insider pass on all things school business. Hi, everyone, and welcome back to School Business Insider. Today we're talking about reimagining how schools are built. Not sprawling outward, but growing upward. With land constraints, rising construction and maintenance costs, and evolving educational program needs, many districts are exploring vertical design as a smart alternative. Joining us today are Kurt Peters and Matt McGregor of Hoffman Planning, Design and Construction, Inc. We'll dig into what vertical school design looks like in practice. From the Tomorrow River School District case study to design efficiencies, operational savings circulation, and building safety. The goal today is to help district leaders evaluate whether vertical construction could be the future for their facilities planning. Kurt and Matt, welcome to the podcast. I'm happy to have you.
- [01:22]
B
Morning.
- [01:22]
C
Thank you very much, John.
- [01:24]
A
So, kicking off, why don't you both give our audience a little bit of what you do at your firm and how you really came to focus on school facilities. Maybe, Kurt, we can kick it off with you?
- [01:35]
C
Sure. Yeah. I worked for a different contractor for about 10 years before I came to Hoffman and worked on a lot of different project types. Some K12, a lot more higher education, actually, and a lot of other things sprinkled in there. But 2019, I reached out to Hoffman because they were looking for, you know, to bring somebody on. And that was, I think, Matt. I don't know if we were going for two or three different referendum projects at that time.
- [02:06]
B
Three. We won two. Two.
- [02:08]
C
Okay. So it needed some more manpower, some people with some experience. So I hopped on at 20, 2019. Then since then, I've been doing a lot of K12 projects and been enjoying it quite a bit, learning a lot, working at Hoffman. And I guess over the years you start to learn enough that you can attend podcasts and those sorts of things.
- [02:32]
A
You know, you've made it, Kurt, if you're on a really niche podcast. So congratulations. And Matt, how about you?
- [02:39]
B
So, Matt McGregor, I'm the director of project management here at Hoffman. I've been part of Hoffman since going back to and ever since coming on board, I think one of my first projects right out of the Gates was a K12 education for the Berlin area school district. And ever since then, that's really been the focus of the project I've been working on. It's a very strong market for us at Hoffman and there's some nuances that we have in working together with Kurt and our design staff. The team is very, very strong and we've. We've done a lot of successful projects since I've been here.
- [03:19]
A
Great, great. Well, welcome again. I was glad to have both of you on. So what are you really hearing these days from districts that. That makes rethinking design such an urgent issue? You know, in the intro I talked a little bit about land constraints, but what, what else are you really hearing from dis districts that is forcing kind of a reimagination of how construction really should be.
- [03:40]
B
So no different than your early comment about rising costs. School districts are seeing budget crunches across the board as well. So they're looking to us and their other partners to continue to look at an economical way to provide education to their students. And whether it is growing enrollment or reducing or declining enrollment, they're trying to find the most economical way and efficient way to do that. And some of these buildings have been around for a long, long time. Sprawling campuses. And it may not be the most safe and efficient way anymore from what it was previously.
- [04:17]
C
Also, consolidation of the school districts as well. It's another thing that's been brought up a little bit more recently. I'd say some school districts that have multiple sites and they're looking to consolidate onto one site. And then obviously with the article that we have here talking about vertical schools, that really plays into that especially.
- [04:38]
A
Yeah, I'm glad you referenced the article. You mentioned the vertical advantage in that article. For those unfamiliar. What do you really mean by that and what is that vertical advantage that you reference?
- [04:49]
C
Yeah, really just looking at schools a little differently, we come across many, many school districts that have these real sprawling campuses tomorrow. River is a really great example of that, where they added onto the building four or five times over the years. And we put this plan together with all the different dates of, you know, when the additions happened. You really sit back and you look at it and then you look at the total amount of property they actually have on their parcel. And then you factor in things like athletics and the need for some of this outdoor space, those sorts of things, and parking, school drop off and bus parking and all that kind of stuff, and you just kind of run out of space. And one way to look at it is to look at the entire picture, look at what's not working and maybe in this case demo it. Demolish it raise that part of the building and rebuild. And in this case, again, building up two stories did save quite a lot of footprint on the site itself.
- [05:56]
A
And Matt, you mentioned there's some safety advantages to maybe building up and not out. Can you talk to me a little bit more about that? We've had some more recent episodes on safety. That's a hot topic. Yeah.
- [06:07]
B
And as you look at safety, it's kind of a large overarching theme. Some of our school districts, they're looking at safety, especially Amherst for example. Hey, we have a K12 school with multiple levels of ages here in this one building. How can we keep these students somewhat apart from each other so there's not as much intermingling of the high schoolers from the underclassmen. And being able to build up, you might be able to create a middle school wing or a high school wing where they're kind of in their own area and doing with their own type of classes. Yeah, but not only accessibility is a huge thing as well when you start looking at multi story buildings. And that's something that we talk at length with the districts prior to coming up with their final plan.
- [06:58]
C
I think that's a good point too. I'm sorry, John, I don't know if you go ahead just the whole conversation about safety is planning ahead of time. Vertical schools can definitely be a tool in looking at safety. And there's a lot of benefits to building up and reducing the amount of entry points to the school, maybe even using some of the vertical circulation as a way of segmenting the building and creating those safety checkpoints, if you will. But at the end of the day, it's all planning with the community, the district staff, students, local fire department and anybody else that has anything to do with the school.
- [07:42]
A
You talked a little bit about addressing challenges with limited land availability and rising construction costs. Where, where is the competitive advantage there with, with rising construction costs? Because I obviously materials cost of construction has gone up, you know, no pun intended, but through the roof. When you're looking to, to build up it, are you able to save significantly than if you're to build out? Because I'm thinking we'll get, we'll, you know, get to this later in the conversation. But I'm sure there's challenges with aging infrastructure. Buildings that weren't originally built with their foundations to support multiple levels have to be addressed a little bit differently. Talk to me a bit about that rising construction cost and how that's an advantage.
- [08:23]
B
Yep. And we're trying to get out ahead of it a little bit where. And Kurt had mentioned that there was a portion of the school at Tomorrow river that we actually deconstructed because to your point, John, they did not have the infrastructure or the structural capabilities of building up on that current structure. But what we did put in place, we had the capacity to look at it and say, hey, do we want to build up further in the future? That wasn't the right solution for them at the point or at that time. But another great example of they want to look at adding air conditioning in the future. So we provided the structural load that they could put their chiller on their roof in the future and things of those where we can actually build into our current plan that ability to either go up or. All right, are we at the point where we're up as high as we want to go and we want to go out from here? We have a lot of those conversations throughout the design process.
- [09:20]
A
When you're working with a school district that has a one story structure and you know, similar to the Tomorrow river school district you had mentioned, is there kind of a magic solution in terms of how many stories you can go up long term, or is it really kind of a case by case basis with the vision of the school district? Is the educational plan, what is kind of the vision when you start thinking from going out to moving up?
- [09:41]
C
Yeah, I would say that it depends on what their goals are. In a lot of cases, two levels make sense. Just due to being able to consolidate everything enough where you can create some of these environments that are still pretty closely connected, you start looking up from there. There's definitely ways to make like a five story school feel connected, and there's precedent for that. But I would say that it starts with the conversation with the school, their goals, and really looking at ways of connecting that upper floor with the lower level and creating some sort of a community. Or like Tomorrow river, for instance, it was a whole stem addition. So the upstairs and the lower level, they kind of spoke to each other, they're open to each other and had a lot of connections in that way.
- [10:33]
A
And what kind of design language and thought goes into really keeping that connection? When you're now talking about different stories, different floors of a building, I'm thinking both from a cultural standpoint and just from an accessibility standpoint. So you're putting elevators in for ADA compliance and things like that. How do you fold all of that into reimagining how a school is designed?
- [10:57]
C
Yeah, again, working with the school and there is a lot of opportunities when you're building up to make those closer connections, everything is just a lot more condensed. Right. So looking at the circulation points is always a big factor there. You know, so if you have some sort of a stair that connects both levels and keeping that wide open, you're creating additional sight lines for safety. But then when you go into the whole accessibility conversation, and we're talking about elevators, of course, a lot of cases, wider corridors, those sorts of things, and even some redundancy in the design itself.
- [11:41]
A
How do you factor in kind of maintaining the design of maybe the existing building and hallways and just the vibe and tying that into a new space? Do you try to bridge that gap? Or is it this is the new part of the construction, this is the old, and we kind of keep it separate. What is kind of the philosophy behind that?
- [12:00]
C
Definitely at Hoffman, we look at the whole school, and that's something that I would say. And we'll keep talking about Tomorrow river, because that's what the article is about. So it's a good talking point there. But it was very. I don't know what the term would be a little segregated. You know, everybody's a little bit far further away from each other than I think you'd want. And, you know, when you look at a school like that and it's just sprawling out, what we did is we looked at the entire school. We talked about, you know, where does elementary need to be, where should high school be, where should middle school be? Because, to be honest with you, they were crossing each other in many different cases. Just whether it's circulation or if it's going to the cafeteria or if it's, you know, going to math class, anything in between there. So we definitely take a lot of pride in looking at the entire school and coming up with a solution that fits the school. So with Tomorrow river, you'll see that we did do a STEM addition that, you know, went up vertically two stories. But the rest of the scope of the school, we're impacting the entire footprint of the school itself. Changing classroom orientations or making different connections in different ways all throughout the school.
- [13:17]
B
A big change there was their access points for pickup and drop off, as well as their administrative areas. That was a huge change for them where they were really all three of their school levels. Elementary, middle school, high school, had their own offices, had their own admin space, and they were kind of sporadic throughout the building. So now having those centrally located spaces, they were really able to kind of provide a little bit more of a core community for their district. As where their entrance points are and where the admin team is to really improve on that safety as we kind of talked about before as well.
- [13:58]
A
Yeah, I think tying it into the overall design language of the existing school can be challenging. I mean, speaking from experience, we just renovated, did a major renovation in our high school where we did a very much an open concept for our library and a teacher center that kind of connect one in the same and it was all one contiguous space and it was beautiful and we were so happy with how it turned out. But as soon as you step outside of that area, it's like, oh, it's kind of. It feels like the old school again. So, you know, it's obvious hindsight looking as, oh, we should have kind of factored in what was and what is now. So we ended up kind of doing like a little mini project outside of this to just at least get the paint colors and everything the same. And that completely changed the aesthetic of the entire school. And now it all feels like one space. It wasn't, oh, here's the brand new shiny project we just completed and here's everything else. Do you find that challenging? Working with school districts is kind of open up their eyes to the entire picture. I again, just speaking from experience, it was something that I didn't really appreciate until the project was done. And it was like, oh, we kind of have two different portions of our school.
- [15:08]
B
So one of our early on processes with our school, once we kick off the design is really looking at their, their overarching maintenance infrastructure needs throughout their existing building. And we really try to prioritize that along with their, their programmatic needs, whether it's an addition or a renovation. And as part of that, we try to incorporate as much of that that you're talking about, John, as we can, whether it's refinishing floors or ceilings or paints. But Kurt and I have seen that numerous times in the past where they get to the end and they're like, okay, we need to replace these corridor ceilings because everybody's looking at the new and they're a little envious of what they have. So it's a very good point.
- [15:49]
C
And we meet with the staff right in the beginning of the project and in the case of tomorrow, river, we did a facilities assessment ahead of time. So really identifying a lot of those needs before the referendum project even starts and meeting with the community staff, students, walking through the spaces and, and, and really making sure we touch on everything because it's really easy to say, oh, we need a new sports Stadium. And we need a STEM addition or, you know, a remodel. But at the end of the day, most school districts need much, much more than that. And a lot of it is just their existing infrastructure like you're referencing.
- [16:27]
A
For us, it's. We didn't want to maintain the existing look because it was horrendous. It was this weird maroon and yellow combo. I don't know where it came from, but it was in our district forever. And so those aren't even our colors. So when we had this beautifully modernized on brand space and you walk out into the hallway like, ugh, like we got. We should have fixed this to begin with. But I think we were just so excited to do this project. We haven't had a major renovation in some time, so we were, we were. We were all in on this space. But it was tough to kind of take a wider lens to look at the rest of the spaces to make sure that every space in the building kind of was contiguous with the design and the colors in the scheme. So that was a learning lesson for us.
- [17:08]
C
Well, that stuff can add up too. I remember working on a school, their colors were really more orange and black and they had blue everywhere. There was like blue window frames everywhere and throughout the whole school. And it is very difficult because that scope can really get crazy out of control from a cost perspective if you want to go back and change all of that. And Matt, you know that because as soon as you do one, then it's like, oh, we should probably do the library too. And, you know, those sorts of conversations start to happen.
- [17:39]
A
But, yep, it took us a little while to realize that we probably should have baked this into the larger project because we were kind of just chasing our tails saying, oh, well, that window sill is the old colors. And we didn't think of the casework up here. And it was just like a never ending project. We're finally done and it looks beautiful. But it was just. I hesitate to say I'll never make that mistake again, because you could, you know, who knows? But I definitely learned a good lesson to take a wider lens and look at the whole building.
- [18:08]
C
For sure.
- [18:09]
B
Yep.
- [18:10]
A
So let's talk about really the learning environment and the student experience. You talked a little bit about this prior. You had mentioned a STEM or STEAM lab, But tell me a little bit more how vertical design really can support modern teaching and learning approaches and spaces.
- [18:26]
C
Yeah. So obviously, with technology expanding all the time, one of the ways that we're looking at when we're designing a vertical school Is creating some of these collaboration spaces that maybe tie the two levels together and incorporating technology into that and creating more of like a. A breakout space for some of the classrooms. That's another thing that's a little bit more common in modern schools is, you know, you have your regular classroom, but there's all these outside classrooms, too. They can exist in the corridor along the vertical circulation. They can be outdoors, which is. Which is great. And we try to do as much as possible. And then in the case of Tomorrow river, they actually had a courtyard, and we filled it in, and we made it an interior space. It just made a lot more sense in this scenario. But in doing that, we created a. Just a great collaboration space to connect both the high school and the middle school in this case, and be able to utilize any space outside of the classroom for additional learning.
- [19:31]
B
Clear story windows that brought daylighting into the space so that you weren't really. You didn't feel like you were in the dead center of the building anymore. So you had that outdoor feel as well.
- [19:43]
C
And before, when it was an outdoor space, it had, you know, it was tough to maintain. So you look out there, and everybody just looked at the potential here. It's like, oh, man, I wish I could go out there. But the grass is a foot long and nothing against any of the facilities, people. It's just kind of like there's just not a good way to access it. And you had to go through an art room to get to it, I think. Yeah. So it becomes a little difficult, but there are those opportunities.
- [20:07]
A
It's funny that. That really resonates with me because the project I was referencing, the library in the dead center of it had this outdoor courtyard that was surrounded by glass, and it really was just like, how many weeds can grow in the growing season every year. It was just such a task to get through the library because that was the only point of entry, and then try and maintain it. It was unruly, so we ended up filling it in. It's now usable space. And we put a skylight up, so you're pulling in that natural light. So it was kind of a best of both worlds. But I totally sympathize with that because it was such a challenge just to maintain a small footprint because the accessibility was such a problem.
- [20:45]
C
Well, great minds think alike. It sounds like we did something very similar. Yeah.
- [20:49]
A
Yeah.
- [20:51]
B
One of the other features that they use quite often, and Kurt kind of touched on it a little bit, is the opportunity to do some sort of a learning stair where they provide the ability that vertical collaboration space, where it may not be the actual stairwell itself, but creating space off of that for students to drop down, use their tablet, phone, what have you, technology, and collaborate in smaller groups.
- [21:20]
A
Every hour you spend soliciting bids is time you could spend improving your district. With KPN and peppm, you skip the bidding process entirely thanks to pre bid contracts designed by a Pennsylvania educational service agency. Join thousands of school districts already saving time, money and stress with nationwide compliant purchasing power. Find out how at www.thekpn.org or www.peppm.org. so, from a facilities maintenance frame of mind, is there a different way of having to address maybe maintaining cleaning, making sure it's operable, a vertical construction rather than sprawling? I mean, in terms of the most efficient ways to like maybe centrally locate your cleaning supplies and things like that, is there anything that needs to be factored into that side of the house when you, you know, the space is built, it's beautiful, it's ready to go, but you know, five years down the road, do we have to rethink how we're maintaining a vertical space versus a sprawling space?
- [22:23]
C
I think when we looking at like the elevators, again, making sure that you size them appropriately to get any of that equipment up and down was a big one.
- [22:32]
B
Janitor's closets on both levels, so they have access to water, cleaning supplies, etc.
- [22:38]
C
But one of the other things that's really nice about a vertical school, and you look at the mechanical, electrical, plumbing, a lot of times you're able to consolidate that into one space or maybe two spaces or one space and some stuff on the roof. So from a maintenance standpoint, you know, just being able to work in one space and not have to walk across the school to go change filters or you know, that sort of thing, that that is beneficial. So I think there's a positive to that.
- [23:03]
A
It's great. We talked a little bit throughout this podcast about the Tomorrow River School district. Do you have any other examples of vertical school designs that you've seen in practice that our audience can really learn from and kind of glean for maybe their next project?
- [23:17]
C
Yeah, actually it was funny because you sent that question ahead of time and I remember looking at a school, it was by big. So it's a. How do you say it? Bjarky Ingalls group, the Big, it was called the the Heights and it was located in an urban setting. And obviously with any of these larger architectural firms, they have some. A little bit more freedom, I guess you'd say. I think it was their first school, so they wanted to make sure it was the right, the right message was sent. But basically what they did is they had a four or five story school that combined two different school entities themselves. But instead of just stacking them, they actually fanned the levels out and then in doing so, they created some outdoor terrace spaces and like at a scale that we would, you know, only dream of being able to do, obviously, like for Matt and I, if we're able to get a couple, you know, like a terrace space and some outdoor space incorporated, that's a, a major win. It's a major win for the district too, because I think everybody wants it. It's just there's a conversation there that needs to happen. But that school in particular really flexed its muscles and kind of showcase that whole terrace learning and collaboration space. So it's one to check out. It's called the Heights.
- [24:41]
A
Great. When you're considering building up rather than out, are there any kind of environmental impacts or ordinance, certain regulations by town and municipality that you have to consider? I know certain. At least in a commercial state, you know, you can. Some cities only allow commercial property to be built so high just because it could be an impact on sight lines and things like that. Have you run into that. Is that, is that a factor that could be challenging when a, when a school may want to consider building up rather than now?
- [25:13]
C
Yeah, I think so. Obviously there's some code challenges that come with it. All things that are workable. I mean, we can figure out most of that stuff. I think having a good communication with the community, especially the community members that are right next door to the school, having them be part of the conversation early on. And that's a big reason why we get the community involved when we have our conversations with the district is those are some of the items that get brought up. It's like, oh, I'm right across the street and you're going to put a big gym there and now I'm not going to have a view. It's something to consider for sure. I mean, you're really impacting the way somebody's living to some extent. So I would say from a municipality standpoint, going up two or three levels, it's typically not as big of a deal. But it would be more of a community thing is how I would answer that.
- [26:05]
A
Sure. So what are some of the biggest concerns that the districts themselves raise when introduced to the concept of vertical design? I mean, not that it's a novel concept, but if you have a one Story structure. You're probably just assuming you're going to build out or reconstruct what you have already. What are some of those big red flags that districts raise when maybe a firm like yours says, you know, maybe we should rethink this and build vertically?
- [26:31]
C
I think the first one for sure is elevator. Every time you say two floors, it's always elevator because everybody knows they're like $100,000 or more. Now, Matt, you probably made all of, all of 100 grand. So that is a huge expense. And you know, with elevators, there's also the conversation of who's using it and how are they using it, how do you gain access to it? Are kids going to goof off in the elevator? So those are all things that we talk about and we're able to figure out no problem. But I would say that'd be number one.
- [27:00]
B
Same thing with stairwells. Are we losing? Are we spending money on stairwells? And it's kind of a dead non educational space. So how can we maximize that space as much as possible?
- [27:13]
C
Another one would be sight lines and supervision. So relying more on cameras and that sort of thing I think is important. But at the same time, I think it's really important when you're building up to make sure you're looking at your sight lines. Are you able to see from the first level up to the second level in different scenarios, what are the important sight lines that you want to make remain open? Those sorts of things. So I'd say that would be another concern that needs to be addressed.
- [27:42]
A
Absolutely. And then what about, we talked about safety already a little bit, but how have districts had to kind of retool their safety plans and how they would respond to an emergency if they're going from a one story campus to a two or three story campus?
- [27:57]
C
Yeah, I think with that it's probably comes down to wayfinding and just making sure people that are in the building understand how to get in and out of it and have clear directionality with that. And it's not really just signage. It could be providing those sight lines to different, different areas in the building that are, you know, like for instance, you look down the hallway and you can see the, the library that, that orients you right away. And it's like, okay, I know where the library is, I know there's an exit there in order to get out of it. But part of that too would be conversations with the local fire department, the police department, and making sure they understand exactly how that whole layout works and that they understand where Are they going to enter the building in case of an emergency? Those sorts of things. And how does that work with two.
- [28:48]
B
Levels where they're rescue?
- [28:51]
C
Yep, yep.
- [28:53]
A
Have districts looked to take advantage of maybe a second story? And in the event of an emergency, can they isolate and cordon off the second story? I mean, it wouldn't impact egress if people wanted to leave, but could you shut down a second story? Is there design language to allow for something like that in order to prevent any kind of intruder maybe making their way up to a new designed second floor or something like that?
- [29:15]
C
Definitely. And I referenced that really early in the podcast here. Was that using those vertical circulation, you know, like the stair or anything like that? That's really a pretty good location to look at that. How does, how does that lock down? How does, how do we remain code compliant from an egress standpoint to make sure people can still leave if needed? But it also comes down to the district and how do they handle those sorts of situations. Is it more of a, you know, you stay in the classroom type of a scenario, or is there a safe spot that is kind of delegated on an upper level, that sort of thing. But yeah, I think there's a lot of different ways to make the vertical school kind of work to your advantage there. From a safety standpoint.
- [30:06]
A
And then from the budgeting side, how does vertical construction really compare to traditional horizontal design over the long term? We talked about maybe just the logistics and the operational functions of facilities, but from a budgeting standpoint, is. Is it kind of a wash? Like what, what. What should business officials really be considering financially with vertical design?
- [30:26]
B
So as you're looking to go up vertically, the main, the main component that you're really not building multiple times is going to be that foundation or that structure. You're going to be able to put that in place once. Yes, it's going to probably need to be oversized, larger than it would typically for a single story structure. But then you're not building it multiple times. If you're going up to a second or a third floor, and it's really looking long term, is, as Kurt mentioned previously from an infrastructure standpoint, really centralizing those infrastructures from a bathroom plumbing perspective, as well as mechanical and electrical infrastructures, you can almost stack them vertically in the building and really create some efficiencies from a cost standpoint.
- [31:11]
A
So having like one wet wall rather than it sporadically going through the ceiling down like a quarter mile to the other end of the building.
- [31:17]
C
Yep.
- [31:18]
B
You have a main chase that's going to run up from the. Whether basement or first floor all the way to the top floor. And that's going to be your plumbing chase that all your bathrooms are going to be connected to. And then as you look into the future, it's really, all right, let's plan for that future. Let's look to where as a district we want to go in 10, 15, 20 years down the road to make sure that we're at least asking some of those difficult questions early on as opposed to. To your point previously, John, not to throw your scenario under the bus, but hey, we got to the end of this and this really wasn't what we were expecting.
- [31:55]
A
Yeah, yeah. And then what about again did talk to this briefly, but when you're looking at building vertically on aging infrastructure, there's school buildings in the United States are very, very old on average. Are you, I think Matt, you spoke to maybe like going out and then up. Is that usually kind of like the best course of action rather than trying to beef up existing foundation? What has been your experience in terms of that approach?
- [32:24]
B
That has probably been our most efficient way to do that is looking at creating a new structure coming out from. From the existing or in the example of Tomorrow river, we actually demoed, I think it was six classrooms that we took off the building to create or to start the foundations for the steam addition. So we were able to kind of build in the same place that we were previously, but we did provide our own foundation structures for our new addition.
- [32:52]
A
So as we look ahead and school business officials listening to this may now being inquiring about vertical construction. What should they be asking their architects and planners when considering something like this?
- [33:06]
C
Yeah, I think looking at. And Matt, you can attest to this, looking at like cost comparison scenarios. You know, what, what makes sense does, you know, does vertical really make sense? How much of the existing building would we have to maybe, you know, get rid of? Is that even necessary? Is there enough land to build up vertically? You know, that's probably a good first question.
- [33:29]
B
I mean, early on in our design and budgeting efforts, we're trying to look at what type of structure are we actually making? Is this a single story structure that we're just going to do some simple steel construction or steel frame with steel stud infills, or is this going to be a, a masonry concrete structure that we have the ability to go up in the future, now or in the future? A lot of these questions get asked early on and we try to put together these costing scenarios for the districts to kind of provide some of those or at least answer some of those questions to say, hey, what should we be looking at? But early on, in the example of Amherst and some of our other districts that we have gone vertical in the past, that site constraint has always really been the biggest proponent to this. Just the fact that, hey, we have nowhere else to go. This is where the addition needs to be. This makes the most sense from a location and logistics standpoint. But how do we make it happen here? And then we start getting into those.
- [34:39]
C
Questions, then you start looking at phasing as well.
- [34:43]
B
So at Tomorrow river, our fees and.
- [34:45]
C
Plan, I think we had five phases at the end of, it's all about keeping the school operational. It's talking about. There's always some compromises there, especially when you're impacting so many different parts of the building. But thinking about that and having those conversations earlier than later is always a good thing because that, that can really impact the design quite substantially. And just the way that we, we phase it, in the end, it's a great point.
- [35:15]
A
Phasing is incredibly important. And I would say, especially to those districts that have seasons and construction seasons are condensed. Like, you know, I'm in New York, so we, we have a few good months where we can get some work done. And outside of that, it's second shift interior work only. So we have to be very intentional about how we, we approach major renovations. And that was a huge consideration for us the past couple of years when we were renovating that space, especially because we were opening the roof, exposing our new design to exterior elements temporarily. So that all has to be factored in too.
- [35:47]
C
That's funny. We're in Wisconsin, so three and a.
- [35:51]
B
Half months of summer where the students aren't there, that's our go time. It's boots on the ground. And how much can we put in place in those three and a half months?
- [36:02]
A
Yeah, and I think being realistic about it too, because I've realized that a lot of contractors like, yep, no problem, we can do all this in two, you know, 12 weeks or whatever. And really it's, you know, you're getting to week eight and it's like we're way behind schedule and. But we kind of knew that in our hearts kind of getting into this. So managing expectations, I've learned, is really important too, because you don't want to be caught two weeks out from opening school and you're nowhere near ready to open those doors to kids, you know.
- [36:31]
C
Yep.
- [36:31]
B
And we try to have those difficult conversations with School districts. Another. Another big piece of the phasing at Amherst or Tomorrow river was the electrical gear. Electrical gear is a year plus out and it continues to be so. So that was a huge component of how everything was getting phased because our tech ed shops in the Steam edition, they couldn't be powered unless we had the new service and place. So we really tried to build our schedule and our phasing around those larger components and when they were going to be available to be actually installed.
- [37:05]
A
Yeah, I had no idea what a pain it was to get panels and switch gear. It was just not something on my radar until we really started getting bids in and things like that. And I'm looking at these lead times like this project isn't going to be done anytime soon, you know, and it's all because of production and lead time.
- [37:21]
B
Yep. Yeah, but being you mentioned, John, being realistic, we try to have those conversations up front with the districts. We're working with another district right now that is kind of very similar project to Tomorrow river. And we're. We're currently in the midst of those conversations as to how this phasing should look due to those time constraints.
- [37:40]
A
Right. So as we wind down here, what's some practical advice that you have for districts maybe just beginning to rethink their facilities planning moving forward?
- [37:49]
C
I would say reach out to local planning, architectural firm right away. Maybe consider doing a feasibility study or even a facilities assessment of your school. Getting all those conversations out early, getting the community involved, staff, students. We've gotten such great feedback from all of these different entities in the past. So I think it's most successful when you do that because somebody from the community will come in and bring something up that maybe nobody's thinking about just because they have a completely different perspective on it. Just like the teachers and staff would, just like the administration would and the students. Students come up with a lot of great ideas as well. So getting that process started early and then coming up with a clear program, you know, what do you actually want to achieve here? What are the issues that you're having at your school now? What are some of the things that are going well that maybe we can expand upon? Those are all good conversation starters.
- [38:52]
B
Well, as Kurt mentioned, that early planning process, being willing and able to ask the difficult questions, ask the catastrophic questions, to say, hey, what if this building wasn't here? What if this building or these staff weren't in this building, were in a different building or a different complex and really not only be able to ask them, but be able to Answer them. So then these individuals need to answer to their community. So being able to have the answers, say, yes, we looked at every option that was on the table. We looked at demoing the school and building new, or we looked at, hey, let's take up this parking lot with another school addition. Well, no, that's really not going to work. We need to go up versus taking over the rest of our site.
- [39:41]
C
That's a really good point, man. How many options did we have at school?
- [39:45]
B
I'm talking about, I want to say there was 17 options.
- [39:50]
A
Wow. Yeah, there definitely could be like an analysis paralysis piece to it. Right. There's so many considerations.
- [39:57]
C
It is, but it is great for the administration to be able to go back to the community and say, hey, we looked at 17 options here. We want to pool. Do we not want to pool? Do you want to have a new elementary school or do you not, do you want to consolidate? I mean, there's just, there's so many different scenarios to run. But the nice thing about doing that is you can really check that off your list and be like, hey, we looked at everything here and some things were completely, you know, didn't fit us at all. But hey, we still looked at it and considered it and got feedback on it. So it's really important.
- [40:29]
A
Right. And I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir to those listening, but you also can't please everyone all the time. So there's always going to be some dissenting opinion in terms of what you finally decide to do, you know?
- [40:39]
B
Well, and right to that point, John, a lot of the districts we work with, we try to have them come up with their, their priorities. What, what are the priorities of this process? Is it a Steam and tech that that is our priority for this project, or infrastructure updates or safety and security? Not saying that any of these are less, more or less of a priority for the school district. It's just where what ones are the top boxes that we need to make sure we're checking.
- [41:08]
A
Right, right.
- [41:10]
B
It helps in the decision making process.
- [41:13]
A
Well, Kurt and Matt, thank you both for, for joining me today in school Business Insider and sharing your expertise on vertical design.
- [41:20]
C
Thank you very much for having us.
- [41:21]
B
Thanks, John.
- [41:22]
A
Yeah, thank you for tuning in to School Business Insider. Make sure to check back each week for your favorite topics.
- [41:32]
B
SA.