As one of the few Washington school districts with a growing elementary school population, the Lake Washington School District has been diligent in creating state of the art facilities to meet its communities’ growing educational facility needs. The district hired the Seattle office of Heery International to manage the design and construction of five elementary schools, one junior high and a multi-grade school. Heery will also supervise work at high school and junior high school projects that are already underway. The project team is starting architectural selection as well as weighing the merits of major renovation against the design and construction of replacement facilities.

“Lake Washington is a very innovative district, not afraid to try new things,” says Heery Vice President Ralph Rohwer. “One of the things they’ve asked us to do is manage budgets not only for the cost of construction but for the total cost of ownership. An energy consumption budget, for example, will play a major role in the program. The district has noted that while it has the capital resources to invest through a community supported tax measure, operational funding remains a challenge. Our goal is to help the district maximize its use of capital funds to ultimately reduce long term operations costs.”

The program is slated for a December 2013 completion.

Heery will also supervise a variety of community projects funded each year by parents and community members.

“Typically, there are about 30 projects each year ranging from the installation of playground equipment to landscaping,” Rohwer says. “Our role is to supervise the community project coordinator.”