Two planned buildings for four classrooms are slated for installation at Greywolf Elementary, 171 Carlsborg Road, by April 2017 as part of a new pilot project.

Earlier this year, legislators appropriated $5.5 million for design and construction of 10 buildings between Sequim, Seattle, Mount Vernon, Wapato and Toppenish school districts as part of an effort to reduce class sizes in kindergarten-third grade. Funding stems from Engrossed Substitute House Bill 2380, but the Sequim School District must provide a site to build and classroom furnishings.

Brian Lewis, Sequim schools’ director of business services, said staff made the decision to install the new buildings at Greywolf because Helen Haller is at capacity.

“Haller can’t handle anymore kids,” he said.

Last year, Helen Haller enrolled about 630 students and Greywolf about 510.

Requirements from the state funding mandate districts place the buildings only at K-3 sites.

Lewis said these two new buildings are different from portable buildings because they’ll be placed on foundations and will not be relocatable.

“Portables have different standards for construction and aren’t as robust as these buildings,” he said.

While these new buildings are not portables, the district will continue to use 13 classrooms in seven portables at Helen Haller, eight classrooms in four portables at Sequim High School and four classrooms in two portables at Greywolf.

Lewis told Sequim Schools’ board of directors on July 18 that the new buildings are in the feasibility phase right now and the design-build team of Walsh Construction Company, architectural firm Mahlum, and engineering firm Coughlin Porter Lundeen, were on-site last week with a design workshop slated for July 27-29.

Specific materials

Construction in Sequim tentatively is set to begin in late September. A major component of the construction is that the Legislature directed Washington’s Department of Enterprise Services, which coordinates all of the modular projects, to use cross-laminated timber, CLT, in the buildings. Cross-laminated timber is made of multiple layers of kiln-dried lumber boards with each wood layer laid perpendicular to the preceding one. Layers are glued together under pressure with formaldehyde-free structural adhesives to form large rectangular panels.

Manufacturers say panels do not ignite easily and maintain being structurally sound when burned, and it has a lower carbon footprint than steel structures.

State Rep. Steve Tharinger said as capital budgets chairman in the House, he advocated to keep the project in the budget because of the advantages of cross-laminated timber, for the reasons mentioned, along with the opportunity to create more jobs.

Tharinger said the intent of the buildings is to try to develop a market for this specific timber, which has been readily used in Europe since the 1990s.

He said Sequim is part of the pilot project to see how the timber and process works for Washington’s schools and other construction in the private sector.

Lewis said the cross-laminated panels will be constructed in a factory and shipped in assembled components or as a flat pack. The nearest cross-laminated timber plant is either in Oregon or Penticton, British Columbia, and a plant being constructed in Colville will not be ready to support this project, he said.

Sequim Schools’ Superintendent Gary Neal told board directors that he’s advocated to Tharinger for using local timber because shipping costs for the wood from either Oregon or British Columbia could be “astronomical.”

Tharinger said using local lumber “in the long-term, is a real possibility.”

“As we develop the program and talk to the private sector, they really wanted us to work through the permitting and the codes,” he said. “Once we show that’s doable, we can develop the market,” he said.

No decision has been made on where the new buildings will go on Greywolf’s campus or which classes will go in them yet. Lewis said the classrooms that go into the new buildings will have to be from K-3 but it’s up to Principal Donna Hudson to make the arrangements.

Due to the construction schedule, the buildings most likely will not be used until the 2017-2018 school year, he said.

For more information on the buildings, contact Lewis at at 582-3266 or blewis@sequim.k12.wa.us.