Mechanical, electrical and plumbing leads from Highline's Facilities team were invited to meet with Hutteball + Oremus Architecture and our Capital Planning & Construction team to review the Pacific Middle School design.
Together, they looked page by page at the designs for the mechanical, heating, air conditioning and ventilation systems and the plan for maintenance access at the new school.
Ellie Daneshnia, executive director of Highline’s Capital Planning & Construction team, said review by various internal district staff helps ensure a high-quality and well-planned facility for staff who will operate and maintain it. “This is one step out of many that our project team takes to ensure no surprises when the contractor and my team hand over the building to be used by our staff and students,” she said.
Here is a sampling of some of the other steps we go through at this point in the design of a new school before our architects finish the design development phase and move on to creating the construction documents.
Major Activities Completed in 2024, So Far
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Early January: Skanska and RC Cost Group reconciled cost estimates based on the 100% Schematic Design provided by the architects.
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January 12: The project team met with the district’s mechanical, electrical and plumbing experts from the Facilities team. The group went through the design, page by page. The project team received valuable input and will carry the comments forward into the design and value engineering practices.
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January 17: A pre-application meeting with the City of Des Moines occurred and comments from the City have been acknowledged by Pacific project staff.
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January 22: A value engineering meeting took place to examine cost-saving measures in the design and construction plans. This is a standard step in the design process for our new school buildings.
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January 25: A geotechnical report was distributed to the project team.
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February 5: Cost-saving options were reviewed with consultant Sazan Group.
Next Steps
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Schedule dates for new water service activities and a meeting with the Port of Seattle.
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Continue working with the City of Des Moines throughout the project permitting process to coordinate 24th Avenue improvements with the new school site plan and access routes for buses, vehicles and pedestrians.
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Work with the architects, consultants and the general contractor/construction manager to finalize the design and construction plan to be within budget based on value engineering recommendations.
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Move into the next Design Development phase, which is expected to be completed by July.
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Between July 2024 and May 2025, the design team will complete the Construction Documents to prepare for construction to begin.
Please visit the project page for the new Pacific Middle School for additional details and a look back at previous news updates.
