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March 1, 2017

Renton School District finds it tough competing with developers for land

  • Many elementary schools are packed as families move south looking for relief from high housing prices in Seattle.
  • By LYNN PORTER
    Journal Staff Reporter

    Image courtesy of Renton School District [enlarge]
    Sartori Elementary will be mostly three stories and serve about 650 students. A district spokesman said it will be full as soon as it opens in 2018.

    Renton School District plans to start construction in April on the $44 million Sartori Elementary School on a full-block site near downtown that the district created partly by buying several houses.

    Construction bids are due March 22. Information is available in a notice that ran in the DJC on Feb. 16.

    The site is just under six acres. The district owned most of the land, but had to buy 12 houses and a grocery store to have enough space for the 77,500-square-foot school, which is set to open in fall of 2018.

    The total cost includes fees, construction, land and demolition.

    Spokesperson Randy Matheson said the district has been building new schools on land it owns or by adding to those properties, but it's also in the market for new sites.

    Land is expensive and the district can't compete with developers, he said.

    The district has about 16,000 students in 22 schools. It has been adding about 200 students a year, Matheson said, partly because families are moving there as prices rise in Seattle.

    But acquiring land near schools is getting more costly and difficult, he said.

    “Developers are coming in there and buying single-family homes, and this has happened to the immediate left and right of our schools,” he said.

    For instance a developer might buy two houses, he said, raze them and build more housing on the site. The upshot is more children who need educating, and less land available for schools, he said.

    “It's happening in every section of our district. We're not able to purchase land at as fast a clip as a developer,” said Matheson, who added that other suburban districts are also feeling the squeeze.

    Integrus Architecture designed and did structural engineering for Sartori Elementary School, which will be at 332 Park Ave. N., just south of The Landing, which has apartments, shopping and entertainment.

    The school will be mostly three stories, and serve about 650 students in kindergarten through fifth grade. It will have classrooms, a library, a gymnasium, community space, a cafeteria/commons and a kitchen.

    Integrus said the building will have a Dedicated Outdoor Air System, auger cast piles, and a SidePlate moment frame structural system.

    The site will have a covered play structure, landscaped areas and a grass field.

    The project team includes AHBL, civil engineering; Weisman Design Group, landscape architecture; BCE Engineers, mechanical, electrical and plumbing; Stafford Design Group, food service; Stantec, acoustical; and The Robinson Co., cost estimating.

    Sartori Education Center was demolished to make way for the school. Matheson said it was built in 1939 as an elementary school and later converted to other uses by the district.

    Sartori will be a magnet school, but without the focus on a specialized curricula designed to draw students from other areas of the district, he said. It will emphasize science, engineering and technology a bit more than the district's other non-magnet schools, he said.

    Magnets are popular. There's been some concern about whether North Renton children would get priority to attend the school, according to a story in the Renton Reporter.

    Matheson said students who live in the neighborhood can attend Sartori, and other students will come from elsewhere in the district.

    Renton's elementary schools are “pretty packed,” he said, and the district will need another middle school in the future, and possibly a high school.

    Matheson said Sartori Elementary should be a big draw. “The minute we open it, it will be full,” he said.


     


    Lynn Porter can be reached by email or by phone at (206) 622-8272.



    
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