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Schools have trades seeing double

Date Posted: July 22 2005

GRAND BLANC - Two schools are twice as nice in the Grand Blanc Community School District.

The building trades and construction manager George W. Auch are immersed in the unique process of simultaneously erecting two middle schools, East and West, that are about as identical as possible. They're being built about four miles apart, with matching designs, matching budgets ($30 million) and nearly matching construction schedules.

"Whether students go to Grand Blanc Middle School East or West, they're going to have the same experience," said J.P. Adams, the school district's director of operations. "The same brick, the same color scheme, the same room numbering system."

Adams said there is a significant cost savings for the school district in building the twin 172,000-square-foot buildings. The structures are based on a modified design of a school built in Texas, and separating the bid process for both facilities allowed more contractors to try and get the work.

The school district retained George W. Auch to oversee construction of both schools - a company it used to build a new elementary school in 2003 - but the subcontractor list is different for both schools.

When asked if it was a bonus having a twin building being put up a few miles away, Jeff Heidelberg, Auch's project superintendent for the East Middle School, responded, "You bet, it's absolutely helpful to have these buildings go up at the same time. We talk all the time and it's always better to have another set of eyes looking at the plans."

Work began last November with the West school. Construction on the East school began in late December, but both are expected to be complete in June 2006 and students and faculty will move in two months later.

"The school buildings are nothing out of the ordinary, just plain, square, normal construction," Heidelberg said. As for the people building it, he said. "Overall, we're pretty satisfied with the workforce."

Grand Blanc middle-schoolers are currently being taught at a single facility consisting of two buildings next to each other. When the new schools open, each is designed to hold 1,200 sixth-, seventh- and eighth graders. The school district anticipates that there will be about 950 students in each school next year.

But the school district's demographics illustrates the population spurt that's expected in a few years. There were 421 high school seniors in the district this year - but this year's 626 kindergartners would soon be creating a crowd in the classrooms without the additional space.

A few years ago voters in the Grand Blanc School District passed a $94 million bond issue to pay for the new middle schools, as well as for a new gymnasium, auditorium, media center and cafeteria at Grand Blanc High School

"Our community is experiencing a great deal of growth, and we've been running out of room," Adams said. "We discussed additions, but building the new schools turned out to be the least costly alternative."

LIFTING eight-inch pipe in front of the new Grand Blanc West Middle School are Randy Brandt and Mike Blake of Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 370 and Dickerson Mechanical.


WIRING A bathroom hand-dryer box at the Grand Blanc West Middle School is Larry Mitchell of IBEW Local 948 and J. Ranck Electric.