Texas District Awards Construction Contract for New Elementary School

The Friendswood Independent School District in Friendswood, Texas, is ready to begin construction on a new elementary school nearly two years after the original bond was approved. The district’s board of trustees selected Satterfield & Pontikes Construction as the project’s construction manager at its board workshop meeting on Monday, Feb. 28.

The facility will serve as a new home for the existing Cline Elementary School. The project comes with a $36-million budget to come from the $127-million bond approved by voters in November 2020.

Groundbreaking is scheduled for March 11, and the project is scheduled for completion in time to open to students for the 2023–24 academic year. The new school’s architect, PBK Architects, has been working to make sure that supply chain issues will not cause any delays in construction.

“It is a nonnegotiable that kids are coming in August,” said PBK Architects partner Melissa Turnbaugh.

The PBK Architects website reports that the new Cline Elementary School will serve students in grades PreK–5 and feature a centralized learning commons for both large group instruction and small reading and study nooks. Each grade level will have its own pod to provide collaboration and pull-out space for each grade. The campus will also include innovation hubs, maker spaces, art and music classrooms, a new cafeteria and new gymnasium.

About the Author

Matt Jones is senior editor of Spaces4Learning. He can be reached at [email protected].

Featured

  • Rethinking K-12 Schools as a Continuous Learning Experience

    Most students move through three or more separate facilities during their K-12 journey, yet the built environments they encounter at each stage have traditionally been designed in isolation, with little continuity in spatial language, learning philosophy, or physical resources. Each new school is a reset with different layouts, learning models, expectations, and ways of moving through a building. The next generation of school design is making the case that the first day of kindergarten and the last day of high school can and should feel connected through common support systems and infrastructure in the physical environment.

  • Montclair State University Debuts New VR Facility

    Montclair State University in Montclair, N.J., recently announced the completion of a new virtual reality learning facility developed in partnership with Dreamscape Learn, according to a news release. The 2,450-square-foot lab space is inside the College of Communication and Media building and will serve students pursuing careers in digital media, virtual reality, and content creation.

  • California District Opens New Continuation High School

    The Fort Bragg Unified School District (FBUSD) in Fort Bragg, Calif., recently held a ribbon-cutting ceremony for Noyo High School, a continuation high school that provides alternative education options for students in grades 6–12, according to a news release. The district partnered with Quattrochi Kwok Architects for design and FRC Inc. for construction, and the project’s funding came from Local Bond Measure B.

  • DLR Group Hires Three for Higher Education Practice

    Integrated design firm DLR Group recently announced that it has brought three new hires on board to help shape its higher education practice in California and the northeast, according to a press release.