WLC was the Civil Engineer on RB+B Architects team for the design of the Kelly Walsh High School. The project included the construction of a new multi-level high school with an approximate footprint of 187,000 square feet. The new building replaces the existing high school building that was originally constructed in the mid 1960’s. The facility is constructed on the same 50 acre site as the existing school building and had to be constructed while maintaining access and utility service to the existing building. The project was broken into many design/construction phases to facilitate an accelerated construction schedule. WLC’s major involvement was in Bid Package 1 and Bid Package 6. Bid Package 1 included partial site demolition, partial utility demolition, temporary water, power, gas, and communication service to the existing building, site grading for the new building, temporary parking lot construction, relocation of water lines, all utility services for the new building, and site improvements around the new building. Bid Package 6 includes mostly grading and surfacing improvements after the existing building is demolished. Our biggest challenge for this phase is ensuring the earthwork for the site is balanced. The expanse and several level changes in the existing building made estimating the earthwork quantities very difficult. Foreseeing this during design allowed us to set up a couple of areas that can be adjusted to account for over/under quantities. The new building was occupied by students for the fall semester of 2016. The existing building demolition and completion of the site improvements are scheduled to be complete for the fall semester of 2017.
