The essential renovations to the district’s schools will take two years to complete. The impact on student education is kept minimal, and the finished buildings will match the high caliber of education at Clayton.
Parts of CHS are over half a century old. Last spring, Proposition S passed and allocated $51 million to the Clayton district for renovations. The three elementary schools, CHS and The Family Center will be sharing this money with roughly $30 million going directly towards the high school.

Wydown’s part was removed from the bond issue and is now being discussed by a citizen committee for future consideration.
The Cottage and Tech Building are being torn down and a three-story addition is being built. The bottom floor will have business, journalism and FACs classes while the entire floor will have world language classes. The entire top floor of both the new and existing buildings will house only science classrooms, and the English office and history office will also be renovated. Stuber will be getting a two-story addition, and Gay Field will also have some renovations. The entire project should be done by August 2011.
“About two years ago, they were looking at how to upgrade our science fac

ilities because they are quite old,” Principal Louise Losos said. “The plan there was to build out over the library, but it was so expensive that the Board of Education decided to take a step back and create a facility master plan of the entire district.”
The proposal for the bond issue grew from the need for updates. Overall the buildings at the high school are extremely outdated.
“In the tech building, we have business classes taught out of old wood shops and pre-engineering taught out of an old auto shop,” Losos said. “The cottage is decrepit. For all these classrooms, the quality of programming far exceeds the environment in which they are taught.”

Another reason for the renovation is to add more classrooms to the school.
“We are very tight on space,” Losos said. “There are few empty classrooms in the building during the day.”
During the two-year building period, students will be affected since classes will be taught in classroom annexes. The annexes actually provide more space compared to the Cottage.
John Berglund, Principal and Project Manager for Bond Wolfe Architects is in charge of designing most of the renovation. Berglund has 16 years of experience as an architect.
“The project is being delivered in phases. Approval by governing authorities for permits comes first, then bidding for demolition of buildings, concrete and steel, then the rest of the building,” Berglund said. “We are mostly through with the ‘approval’ phases, and the demolition is set to begin in soon.”
The school district hired Bond Wolfe Architects to design the additions to the school and S. M. Wilson & Co as a Construction Management Agency. The school district still holds all the individual contracts but the agency will manage the contracts.
Architecture is a very collaborative process between the owner, architect, engineer and builder.
“You need participation from all parties to have a successful project,” Berglund said. “The idea of single architect in his ivory tower is a commonly held belief that does not really exist, especially as projects develop in size and complexity. The most successful architecture is one that serves the community best, a backdrop so that people can do what they need to do in the best possible environment.”
Schematics of buildings are approximately 40 percent complete. However, there has already been a problem regarding the demolition of the Cottage, which has been pushed back to January. A utility tunnel that takes care of heating, electricity and ventilation for the Cottage and Tech building runs under the Cottage in the area that needs to be excavated for the new building.

Project Engineer Dan Behler, of S. M. Wilson & Co, is working on this problem.
“All the utilities that are in the old tunnel need to be rerouted,” Behler said. “So what we’re going to do is towards the end of the year, we’ll take the old pipes out of service and then transfer them to the new tunnel. We’ll need to do this in a way that doesn’t disturb the students or shut down the power in the school. The Cottage and Tech Building have to be in a safe condition and completely disconnected before the city even lets us pull the permit for this work.”
S. M. Wilson is currently creating bid packages that include collections of tasks to send out to the community. Local contractors then bid on these packages by offering their service for a set price. The school district is notified of the price for the cheapest qualified contractor. Qualifications mostly stem from the past experience that the contractor has.
“Once the buildings are down, then the underground work continues before the foundations can be poured and the steel can be erected,” Berglund said. “The new building footprint is very similar to what is out there, but will be much taller and roughly the same height as the existing adjacent buildings.”
Berglund is responsible for the blueprints that the contractors will be using. If the construction workers have any issues or questions, they contact him directly.
“A lot of detail and time goes into ‘behind the walls’ issues of engineering and specifications,” Berglund said. “It is critical to have thorough documents, which remove ambiguity so that contractors are all bidding the same thing. There are limited holes in what is to be provided. The drawings are never perfect, but much like a multiple sieves with finer and finer meshes, each successive issue of drawings refines the final product.”
The overall project has a huge budget, though Berglund is still cautious about allotting money.
“The project is currently tracking on budget,” Berglund said. “Budgets are generated during each phase of drawing development; as the scope gets focused, and additional detail is provided during the design phase, the construction manager is able to gain more confidence that the numbers are correct.”
During construction, architects are on site weekly for progress meetings, as well as additional times for review of progress, clarification of intent, and resolution of unforeseen issues.
“During this phase, the focus of the architect shifts from managing the design and drawing process, to working with the contractor to successfully execute the intent of those documents, given real-world conditions,” Berglund said. “If the design team has done their job properly, there will be minimal issues during construction with changes in the field, cost over runs and schedule difficulties. Some of these are beyond our control, but a good set of drawings will minimize future bumps in the road.”
Though the buildings will take two years to construct, the new buildings are expected to last 50 to 75 years.
“Two years may appear to be a long time, but a typical large school project like this often extends beyond five years from start to finish,” Berglund said. “Two years is simply the construction time. The upfront work is important to long term benefits.”
The new wing will be LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified as a green building. There are different levels of certification.
“We’re trying to decide right now how far we want to go,” Behler said. “Everything needs to be as efficient as possible and use materials that are recycled. Obviously, the more green, the more money it’ll cost.”
Director of Facility Services Tim Wonish asks that all students be patient during the construction.
“Please be safe around the work zones,” Wonish said.
A bit over half of the Quad will be fenced off later this year. The part of the Quad near the Tech building and Cottage will be fenced off for the construction.
Overall Losos, is very happy that the renovations are happening.
“If you look at our AP scores, the teaching here is fantastic,” Losos said. “I think it’s just time for a change. I think it’s about the outer appearance matching the inner quality of teaching. It’s very exciting, and I’m very happy to see it all falling into place.”

FOr a slide show of Bond Wolf’s schematics for the new building, click here.