April 1, 2016

New health sciences building in Burien

Rendering courtesy of Hutteball & Oremus Architecture [enlarge]

Highline School District No. 401 has started construction on a two-story, 26,460-square-foot Health Sciences Building at Puget Sound Skills Center in Burien.

The $21.8 million project at 17810 Eight Ave. S. is slated to open in September 2017, according to Hutteball & Oremus Architecture. Construction will cost about $14.5 million.

Puget Sound Skills Center trains students in the Highline, Federal Way, Fife, Tahoma and Tukwila districts. The center is in the Highline district, which is responsible for construction and operations.

The Health Sciences Building will double the capacity for dental and nursing assistant programs. Hutteball & Oremus said it is designed to be seen from Des Moines Memorial Drive and create an identity for the center.

It will have a lecture hall, three classrooms, nursing skills lab, biology lab, dental skills lab and Sea Mar Dental Clinic, where students can get hands-on learning experience and potential internships.

The project is being constructed as a High-Performance School Building following the Washington Sustainable School Protocol.

A buffer will be created to protect wetlands on the site.

The skills center will remain open during construction and the parking lot will be expanded to create a path for students.

All the funding for the skills center was approved by the state Legislature in the 2015-2017 biennial budget, and the site was already owned by the school district.

The district said funding for skills centers is different from other school construction projects, which are funded by voter-approved bonds. Skills center funding comes directly from the state capital budget.

Here are the other project team members: Forma Construction, contractor; Coughlin Porter Lundeen, civil and structural engineer; Metrix Engineers, mechanical; Hargis Engineers, electrical; Thomas Rengstorf Associates, landscape architect; Stantec, acoustical engineer; Gibson Traffic Consultants, transportation consultant; The Robinson Co., cost estimating; Aquatica, environmental consultant; PBS Engineering and Environmental, hazardous materials consultant; Associated Earth Sciences, geotechnical engineer and soil testing; Bush, Roed & Hitchings, surveyor; Keithly Barber Associates, commissioning; and Mayes Testing Engineers, testing and inspections (except geotechnical).