A construction worker is seen putting up ceiling panels inside a newly installed portable Wednesday afternoon in Chehalis. This portable will be used as the admin building during future renovations.
A newly installed portable is seen Wednesday afternoon in Chehalis. This portable will be used as the admin building during future renovations.
One construction worker, right, is seen kicking in a support beam underneath a newly installed portable Wednesday afternoon in Chehalis.
A Centralia School District vehicle is seen in front of a newly installed portable Wednesday afternoon in Chehalis.
A construction worker steps out of a newly installed portable Wednesday afternoon in Chehalis.
Centralia High School received the first sections Tuesday of a portable village designed to house students and administrators during an upcoming complete remodel of the school.
The district still does not know the exact day construction will begin on what the it has described as a like-new remodel for the aging high school, but Principal Josue Lowe believes it will be late September or early October.
“I was in a meeting on Monday and it’s not a firm date, but if everything goes smoothly through the permitting process, the hope is they can start work in early fall,” Lowe said.
There will be a total of 18 portable buildings in the south parking lot, which includes restrooms and administrative buildings. There are also 11 portable buildings currently in place on the other side of the high school that the school uses as classrooms.
The district owns the 11 portable buildings currently in place and will lease the incoming 18 buildings. District staff did not know the amount they will pay specifically to lease the portable buildings and said it is wrapped up in the total construction price.
The Centralia High School student body will be completely housed in the portable buildings for a year, from fall 2018 until fall 2019. The rest of the buildings will continue to arrive until early July.
“Most of them will be delivered this month,” said Ed Petersen, communications and public relations coordinator for the district. “We are trying not to deliver more than one a day. There are some days where we might deliver a double-wide and one of the single restroom portables. So they will be delivered, they will be set, they will bring in the next one and the last one is scheduled for early July.”
Petersen said the high school construction is still on track to be completed by fall of 2020.
The Centralia School District approved the schematic design of the high school at their March 21 board of directors meeting.
“We’re still in the designing phase,” Petersen said. “We have done the schematic approval, that’s the basic layout, the high-level layout of what the building is going to look like and how our programs are basically allocated. From there, they go into the design development phase where they work out all the mechanical issues, things like that. So there are still two more design phases that have to be completed and we are still not entirely sure how long that all will take.”
This construction is part of a $74 million bond voters approved in February 2017 to fund a full remodel of the high school and construct two new K-6 elementary schools.
