Schools top
Washington’s
class of 2000
top projects
By BENJAMIN MINNICK
Journal Construction Editor
Following a trend of the past few years, schools continue to be the cornerstone of the public construction market — on both a local and national level. Most of the projects on the Journal’s list are schools, including the top three hard bid projects. On a national scale, the baby boom echo, those born since 1976, has created crowding in our schools and a demand for more facilities.
At $33 million, West Seattle High School (Seattle School District) reaches the top of the list of 2000 hard bid construction projects.
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Construction consultant FMI Corp. predicts construction of new educational buildings across the country will grow by $4 billion, or 10 percent, this year to $43 billion. That compares favorably to FMI’s estimate of 5 percent growth for total construction. Last year, construction of new educational facilities jumped by 17 percent while the total construction market was up 6 percent.
About $36 billion of the new educational facilities built this year will be publicly owned. FMI says improvements to existing school buildings will continue to be a significant market, growing $1.9 billion, or 10 percent, to $20 billion.
According to U.S. Department of Education statistics, Washington state had 1,008,000 students enrolled in public elementary and secondary schools in 1999. The number for the year 2009 is projected to increase to 1,045,000 (up 3.6 percent) — making Washington number 14 on the list of the fastest growing school populations. The nation’s hot spots for school population growth for the 1999-2009 period are projected to be Nevada (17.6 percent), Idaho (16 percent), Arizona (13.4 percent), Hawaii (13 percent) and New Mexico (12 percent).
The city of Seattle's Justice Center is the No. 1 GC/CM project in the state for 2000, at $92 million.
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The Department of Education says the baby boom echo, which reached its peak in 1990 with the birth of 4.1 million children, has resulted in a 25 percent increase in the nation’s birth rate.
As the “echos” age, there will be more demand for secondary and higher-learning schools in the future. That can been seen in the colleges and universities across the country, which have been setting new enrollment records with about 15 million students. Enrollment in those institutions is expected to jump about 10 percent in the next eight years.
The government is predicting that the number of births will not drop off like the baby boom did in the early 1970s, but will increase slowly for the next decade. Long-range projections are that the birth rate will rise slowly from 4.2 million in 2009 to 4.8 million in 2028.
When the echos get old enough to drive, they might find the going slow in the state’s populated areas. The region’s roads are already congested and new ones will be a long time coming, thanks in part to Initiative 695, which reduced car tab revenues that were going to help build new roads under previously passed Referendum 49.
On the plus side, several parts of the FAST Corridor project are under way. The program is designed to improve freight movement along the Interstate 5 corridor between Everett and Tacoma, primarily by building grade separations at railroad crossings.
FMI predicts highway construction across the country will grow by 3 percent this year, to $55 billion. That comes off a flat performance for 2000.
-- Benjamin Minnick, Aaron Schab, Lina Korsmo and David Wise edited this special section.
