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Grading on a curve Vernon’s BX Elementary expansion
Grading on a curve
BY JAMES PETERS
At the end of July 2021, about the only thing left to finish on the BX Elementary School expansion in Vernon, B.C. was some final grading and additional landscaping. The construction project, which got underway in May 2020, will be completed ahead of time and on budget, according to Project Manager Archie Stogianos.
“I’ve been in construction for most of my adult life and I can’t remember a project going this smoothly,” says Stogianos, who is also the Director of Facilities for Vernon School District No. 22. “I think there were many reasons for that happy scenario, including the cooperation between the general contractor, Sawchuk Developments of Kelowna, and our local architectural company, MQN from Vernon. But another important factor was the school teachers, the administrators and the students, who all deserve a round of applause – everyone really handled the disruption professionally.”
The nearly $12-million expansion has added an additional 240 seats to the school through 12 extra classrooms – nearly doubling the size of the original. Ten of the classrooms will be used as soon as the kids return, and two will remain available for future growth. The student population has been steadily increasing for years at BX Elementary, which ultimately saw five portable classrooms added to the school grounds to accommodate this growth. With construction now complete, all of the portables have been removed from site. The new classrooms are a true extension of the original building, and all were built to the maximum allowable square footage – roughly
the same size as the existing classrooms.
“We maximized the window size in the new rooms and kept the design and construction simple and functional with modern lighting and Direct Digital Controls (DDCs),” says Stogianos. “All aspects of the expansion were constructed with wood framing due to the building being a simple single storey with six-foot crawl space.”
In addition, the expansion incorporated larger hallways, better traffic flows, clean sight lines to improve hallway supervision, and all of the new rooms have large windows to allow as much natural light in as possible. The school’s existing classrooms will be renovated to match the designs in the new construction. On the energy efficiency front, new air-source heat pumps for the HVAC system were also incorporated, making for a much smaller carbon footprint. Rounding things off were the addition of lowmaintenance interior and exterior finishes.
The province provided $11.1 million for the expansion and the Vernon Board of Education contributed another $425,000. Many of the students were already spending full days in portables, and enrolment is only expected to increase in the coming years, according to a B.C. Government press release. Without the addition, the province said the school would have had to double its number of portables in the next 10 years.
B.C.’s Minister of Education, Rob Fleming, was recently quoted saying, “I can’t wait to see every student at BX learning in classrooms that keep them fully connected to the great school community they have in Vernon.” Echoing that statement, Robert Lee, Board Chair of the Vernon School District, said, “Vernon is a great place to live, and School District 22 is a great place to learn. These classrooms will allow all students and staff to be in one building and will enhance the inclusive and collaborative learning environment at BX Elementary.”
In January of 2021, the school was fully occupied and operational. “We had to relocate two of the portables for construction, but the school was at full capacity throughout,” says Stogianos. “Yes, it’s truly unfortunate that we started during COVID, but that fact didn’t really affect the construction of the school.”
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Planning for the expansion had started well before the pandemic, but Stogianos says the impact of COVID-19 was manageable. “Teachers and students were following all of the government’s protocols, of course, and those of us on the construction site were doing the same,” he explains. “But I think because the task was so well organized from the very beginning, COVID precautions didn’t disrupt our progress in any significant way.”
The pandemic certainly created the need for even more attention to the already stringent safety protocols enforced at construction sites everywhere, and this project had the added wrinkle of ensuring the safety of children was always paramount. “Safety is that much more important when young kids are involved,” says Stogianos. “So we fenced off the construction portion, the emergency exits were never blocked, and we always used a crossing guard for the introduction of any large equipment on site. With regular safety inspections taking place throughout, we passed with flying colours every time.”
Stogianos says that cooperation between the GC and the architect was enhanced with by cooperation from the sub-trades. “That kind of harmony is what really kept the project safe, on budget, and running smoothly.”
In terms of the exterior, he says that the entire school essentially received a full makeover. “The MQN architectural group had planned for an exterior upgrade of the entire school and blended the appearance of the new with the existing to match, and you really can’t tell where the original school started, and the new expansion begins.”
Making the most of the disruption, many of the teachers took the opportunity to use the construction project – complete with heavy equipment – as a teaching opportunity.
“The teachers did an amazing job that way – any time a piece of big equipment was on-site, they would bring the kids out to show them and explain what was going on,” Stogianos says. “Who knows, maybe we’ll have some future tradespeople and heavy equipment operators as a result!”
This article originally appeared in the fall 2021 issue of SICA Construction Review magazine and is reprinted with permission from the Southern Interior Construction Association. n
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