Last Tuesday, the Northeast Community Propel Academy, a K-8 school with the capacity for 1,660 students, opened In Philadelphia. The 180,000-sf building was financed and constructed through a public-private partnership between the School District of Philadelphia and Gilbane Development Company, which provided turnkey development for the new school.
Gilbane Building Company acted as the project’s design-builder and hired Stantec as its architect. Gilbane was one of three firms that submitted bid proposals to the school district in the fall of 2017, and received the contract the following January, says Susan Tully, Senior Project Manager and Market Leader for Gilbane’s K-12 Center of Excellence. The school’s design was completed by October 2019, and after some municipal delays construction began in March 2020, “on the day the world stopped” because of the coronavirus pandemic, quipped Tully.
Propel Academy is in a multicultural section of Philadelphia that “is booming,” says Tully, with lots of service sector workers. But the number of school seats hadn’t kept pace with the community’s growth; Tully notes that another school there, built for 600 students, now serves 2,000. The district “knew they need to get a new school built quickly,” she recalls.
The school is on land that previously had served as baseball and softball fields. As part of the P3 agreement, Gilbane Development purchased the land from the school district for $1, and upon completion of construction on August 19, 2021 sold the property and school back to the school district for $79 million.
“Speed to market was a driver” for the P3 arrangement, says Luis Vildostegui, Stantec’s Senior Principal and Education Leader, whom BD+C interviewed with Jennifer Grafton, Stantec’s Project Manager and Senior Associate. Vildostegui notes that Propel Academy’s design reflects the school district’s gravitation toward a more socialized teaching model that focuses on learning with peers.
SCHOOL FEATURES COLLABORATIVE ZONES
Gilbane and Stantec, with Fengate Asset Management, were part of a construction financing consortium that in June broke ground on six K-12 schools in Prince George’s County, Md. This was the first P3 for schools in the nation, and it’s expected to cut in half the time it takes to complete those schools, which are scheduled to open in 2023.
In Philadelphia, the Propel Academy project “is one of the most collaborative I’ve worked on in my career,” says Tully. One of its advantages was Gilbane’s relationship with Stantec, which provided architecture, interior design, and civil engineering services. “We were able to advance the construction before the designs were completed, which fast-tracked the project,” says Grafton. And because Stantec had worked previously with the school district and Gilbane, “we could act as an intermediary” when decisions were made, says Vildostegui.
Stantec’s office in Philadelphia is right across the street from the school district’s, so it set up a big room where all of the project’s stakeholders could meet conveniently. “We were all there, resolving problems from the beginning,” says Vildostegui. Any additions or changes during the design or construction process had to be “cost-neutral solutions,” says Tully. (Nicole Ward, AIA, the school district’s design manager, was its liaison on this project.)
Those discussions included “challenging some basic assumptions,” says Vildostegui, like the building’s placement, which is adjacent to a park that exposures city kids to natural environments they might not see otherwise. During the permitting stage, the building team and school district also hashed out whether a retention basin on the site should be above or below ground (they ultimately chose the latter).
The building team’s early collaboration allowed its members to react quicker when there were materials shortages or delays. “We didn’t need to make compromises,” says Tully.
The Propel Academy was build on land that once served as ball fields, and is located near a tree-lined park.
A ‘SHINING SUCCESS STORY’ FOR P3s
Propel Academy is organized into clusters of classrooms and collaborative zones for small learning groups. There are six classrooms per grade for grades 1-5, and nine classrooms per grade for grades 6-8. The classrooms are positioned around shared media and tech commons within each grade level house, and the number of classrooms can be adjusted as needed.
The school also has science labs, music rooms, and “exploration” spaces, says Grafton. “It’s transformative,” says Vildostegui about the school’s design, that had to meet what Tully calls the school district’s “strict design standards” that are informed by LEED and WELL guidelines.
Tully sees Propel Academy as a “test case” for the school district, and believes P3 financial agreements will be more in vogue for financing school construction to meet clients’ demands for speed. “It’s a shining success story” for the P3 approach, adds Vildostegui. “It’s not for every project, but it’s quicker than a traditional design-bid-build because the issues get moved upfront.”
Related Stories
| Mar 15, 2011
Passive Strategies for Building Healthy Schools, An AIA/CES Discovery Course
With the downturn in the economy and the crash in residential property values, school districts across the country that depend primarily on property tax revenue are struggling to make ends meet, while fulfilling the demand for classrooms and other facilities.
| Feb 23, 2011
“School of Tomorrow” student design competition winners selected
The American Institute of Architecture Students (AIAS) and Kawneer Company, Inc. announced the winners of the “Schools of Tomorrow” student design competition. The Kawneer-sponsored competition, now in its fifth year, challenged students to learn about building materials, specifically architectural aluminum building products and systems in the design of a modern and creative school for students ranging from kindergarten to sixth grade. Ball State University’s Susan Butts was awarded first place and $2,500 for “Propel Elementary School.”
| Feb 15, 2011
LAUSD commissions innovative prefab prototypes for future building
The LA Unified School District, under the leadership of a new facilities director, reversed course regarding prototypes for its new schools and engaged architects to create compelling kit-of-parts schemes that are largely prefabricated.
| Feb 9, 2011
Gen7 eco-friendly modular classrooms are first to be CHPS verified
The first-ever Gen7 green classrooms, installed at Bolsa Knolls Middle School in Salinas, California, have become the nation's first modular classrooms to receive Collaborative for High Performance Schools (CHPS) Verified recognition for New School Construction. They are only the second school in California to successfully complete the CHPS Verified review process.
| Dec 17, 2010
Alaskan village school gets a new home
Ayagina’ar Elitnaurvik, a new K-12 school serving the Lower Kuskikwim School District, is now open in Kongiganak, a remote Alaskan village of less than 400 residents. The 34,000-sf, 12-classroom facility replaces one that was threatened by river erosion.
| Dec 6, 2010
Honeywell survey
Rising energy costs and a tough economic climate have forced the nation’s school districts to defer facility maintenance and delay construction projects, but they have also encouraged districts to pursue green initiatives, according to Honeywell’s second annual “School Energy and Environment Survey.”
| Nov 29, 2010
New Design Concepts for Elementary and Secondary Schools
Hard hit by the economy, new construction in the K-12 sector has slowed considerably over the past year. Yet innovation has continued, along with renovations and expansions. Today, Building Teams are showing a keener focus on sustainable design, as well as ways to improve indoor environmental quality (IEQ), daylighting, and low-maintenance finishes such as flooring.
| Nov 23, 2010
Honeywell's School Energy and Environment Survey: 68% of districts delayed or eliminated improvements because of economy
Results of Honeywell's second annual “School Energy and Environment Survey” reveal that almost 90% of school leaders see a direct link between the quality and performance of school facilities, and student achievement. However, districts face several obstacles when it comes to keeping their buildings up to date and well maintained. For example, 68% of school districts have either delayed or eliminated building improvements in response to the economic downturn.
| Nov 3, 2010
Designs complete for new elementary school
SchenkelShultz has completed design of the new 101,270-sf elementary Highlands Elementary School, as well as designs for three existing buildings that will be renovated, in Kissimmee, Fla. The school will provide 48 classrooms for 920 students, a cafeteria, a media center, and a music/art suite with outdoor patio. Three facilities scheduled for renovations total 19,459 sf and include an eight-classroom building that will be used as an exceptional student education center, a older media center that will be used as a multipurpose building, and another building that will be reworked as a parent center, with two meeting rooms for community use. W.G. Mills/Ranger is serving as CM for the $15.1 million project.
| Oct 27, 2010
Grid-neutral education complex to serve students, community
MVE Institutional designed the Downtown Educational Complex in Oakland, Calif., to serve as an educational facility, community center, and grid-neutral green building. The 123,000-sf complex, now under construction on a 5.5-acre site in the city’s Lake Merritt neighborhood, will be built in two phases, the first expected to be completed in spring 2012 and the second in fall 2014.
