September 9, 2011

New Denny Middle School has opened in West Seattle

Photo courtesy of Seattle Public Schools [enlarge]

Seattle Public Schools celebrated the opening of Denny International Middle School this week. The school is at 2601 S.W. Kenyon St. in West Seattle. It is shown here on the lower left.

The 130,000-square-foot building shares a 17.5-acre campus with Chief Sealth International High School, which completed a renovation last year. The combined budget for both projects was $149 million.

The middle school was designed to support an International Baccalaureate program, foreign language classes, and a pre-engineering program for high school and middle school students. Being close to the high school will allow Denny students to receive tutoring and peer mentoring from Sealth students, and share spaces such as a technology music lab, music classrooms and a new 20,000-square foot commons.

Denny was designed with sustainability features such as a green roof, radiant floor heating, natural ventilation in most classrooms, and energy-efficient heating and lighting systems. The school grounds have drought-tolerant landscaping and biofiltration swales.

Bassetti Architects was the architect and DKA was program manager. JV Constructors was general contractor for the first phase and Absher Construction was the general contractor for the second phase.

The third phase will be completed in November, and includes demolition of the old Denny building and construction of new athletic facilities south of the new campus. BNBuilders is general contractor for the third phase.

Denny was one of seven major projects funded by the 2007 Building Excellence III capital bond. The others were Sealth, Hamilton International Middle School (opened in 2010), Nathan Hale High School (opened in 2011), South Shore School (opened in 2009), Rainier Beach High School (completed in 2008) and the Ingraham High School addition, now under way.