Prince George’s County Public Schools is the second-largest school system in Maryland. It is also the second-oldest, with more than half of its 208 schools over 50 years old.
Like many school systems around the nation, Prince George’s faces rising enrollment with aging buildings and not enough seats. To address these shortfalls, the county has initiated an alternative construction financing program with some of the industry’s leading AEC firms, whose goal is to accelerate the time it takes to plan, finance, and build schools, and to reduce the cost of construction and maintenance.
COMMITMENT TO SMALL AND MINORITY BUSINESS PARTICIPATION
This consortium, known as Prince George’s County Education & Community Partners, this week broke ground on six K-8 and Middle schools whose completion is scheduled for the summer of 2023. The properties will be turned over to the consortium on July 1 to begin construction through a Public-Private partnership delivery approach. The consortium comprises Fengate Asset Management, an alternative investment manager focused on infrastructure, private equity, and real estate strategies; Gilbane Development Company (a financing member), Gilbane Building Company (the lead design-builder), Stantec (designer and AOR), and Honeywell (lead services provider).
Also see: Three AEC firms launch a mass timber product for quicker school construction
According to the Prince George’s County Public Schools “Blueprint Schools” website, Arel Architects, a certified county-based small business and minority business enterprise, is part of the design team and has a mentor protégé relationship with Stantec. Warren Builds Construction and Corenic Construction Group (also certified small and minority businesses) are on the construction team and have mentor protégé relationships with Gilbane. Three|E Consulting Group serves as the economic inclusion and compliance team.
The consortium is guaranteeing procurement of at least 30% of total eligible costs of the program to minority-owned businesses, community-based small businesses, and the creation of county-based jobs.
CUTTING THE PLAN-TO-BUILD TIME IN HALF
In Maryland, it typically takes seven years to plan and build a school. The consortium’s members believe the county’s alternative financing approach can cut that time in half, and save an aggregate of $174 million in deferred maintenance and construction costs for all six new schools, compared to a traditional construction procurement model.
The six schools under construction create 3,000 jobs and will result in upgraded facilities for more than 8,000 students and their families.
Prince George’s County claims to be the first public school system in the U.S. to leverage a full-scope alternative financing model to design, build, finance, and maintain a multi-school K-12 construction program.
“We have made tremendous strides in the area of long-range facility planning to advance from a capital program of primarily emergency repair projects toward a major modernization program with a plan to address each older facility in our inventory over the next 20 years,” says Dr. Monica Goldson, CEO of Prince George’s County Public Schools. “The Blueprint Schools initiative helps us accelerate delivery of new schools and modernizations for safe, sustainable, educational facilities to fully support 21st Century instruction for our students, staff, and community.”
Related Stories
| Aug 11, 2010
Joint-Use Facilities Where Everybody Benefits
Shouldn’t major financial investments in new schools benefit both the students and the greater community? Conventional wisdom says yes, of course. That logic explains the growing interest in joint-use schools—innovative facilities designed with shared spaces that address the education needs of students and the community’s need for social, recreation, and civic spaces.
| Aug 11, 2010
Education's Big Upgrade
Forty-five percent of the country's elementary, middle, and high schools were built between 1950 and 1969 and will soon reach the end of their usefulness, according to the 2005–2008 K-12 School Market for Design & Construction Firms, published by ZweigWhite, a Massachusetts-based market-research firm.
| Aug 11, 2010
Burr Elementary School
In planning the Burr Elementary School in Fairfield, Conn., the school's building committee heeded the words of William Wordsworth: Come forth into the light of things, let nature be your teacher. They selected construction manager Turner Construction Company, New York, and the New York office of A/E firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill to integrate nature on the heavily wooded 15.
| Aug 11, 2010
Bronze Award: Trenton Daylight/Twilight High School Trenton, N.J.
The story of the Trenton Daylight/Twilight High School is one of renewal and rebirth—both of the classic buildings that symbolize the city's past and the youth that represent its future. The $39 million, 101,000-sf urban infill project locates the high school—which serves recent dropouts and students who are at risk of dropping out—within three existing vacant buildings.
| Aug 11, 2010
New school designs don't go by the book
America needs more schools. Forty-five percent of the nation's elementary, middle, and high schools were built between 1950 and 1969, according market research firm ZweigWhite, Natick, Mass. Yet even as the stock of K-12 schools ages and declines, school enrollments continue to climb. The National Center for Education Statistics predicts that enrollment in public K-12 schools will keep rising...
| Aug 11, 2010
Bronze Award: Lincoln High School Tacoma, Wash.
Lincoln High School in Tacoma, Wash., was built in 1913 and spent nearly a century morphing into a patchwork of outdated and confusing additions. A few years ago, the Tacoma School District picked Lincoln High School, dubbed “Old Main,” to be the first high school in the district to be part of its newly launched Small Learning Communities program.
| Aug 11, 2010
Bronze Award: Hawthorne Elementary School, Elmhurst, Ill.
At 121 years, Hawthorne School is the oldest elementary school building in the Elmhurst, Ill., school district and a source of pride for the community. Unfortunately, decades of modifications and short-sighted planning had rendered it dysfunctional in terms of modern educational delivery. At the same time, increasing enrollment was leading to overcrowding, with the result that the library, for ...
