Bartlett Cocke’s Kistner adds that Texas continues to outperform the rest of the country economically, and job creation continues, which means people are moving into the state with children who need schools.

“Growth may be down a smidge,” says Kistner, offering as an example the Comal ISD in New Braunfels, which added 800 students last year, compared to 900 the year before. “They have had that 800 to 900 growth a year through the 2000s.”

Susan Smith, vice president of Corgan Associates in Dallas, agrees that population increases still drive a need for construction of new facilities and renovation of existing schools. Certain areas in San Antonio, Austin and Houston are prompting support of bonds, but she says it is not as widespread as in the past. Smith adds she is seeing more interest in renovation rather than new facilities.

“School districts are being cautious and mindful of their constituents and taxpayers,” Smith says. “They don’t want to add to the burden with bonds.”

Corgan designed the recently complet-ed $62-million Dubiski Career High School for Grand Prairie ISD in Grand Prairie, a $66-million high school in Red Oak and a $13-million pre-kindergarten Head Start facility in Denton.

District challenges

There’s more involved with opening a new school than securing bond money and putting the bricks and mortar in place. The district also must figure out how to operate it.

“There are challenges to deal with budget shortfalls and staffing and how they will manage current facilities,” Charter Builders’ DeVoe says. “Bringing online new facilities is more of a challenge. Budgets cannot support additional staff.”

Therefore, districts are pushing back start dates, DeVoe adds, Also, he finds that districts are not starting jobs in the price range of more than $50 million, which means that “we’re seeing opportunities in the elementary, middle school range.”

Huckabee adds, “What you are seeing now are pressures on school districts to make do, so we’re seeing less activity. Clients are much more conservative about decision-making. If they can postpone for a year, they will.”

Fierce competition

DeVoe says that with private-sector work scarce, there is “ridiculous competition” in school jobs, with 15 to 20 proposers on a project.

“It’s extremely tough to win work because there are firms out there, general contractors and subcontractors, who are taking work at cost,” DeVoe adds.

DeVoe says Charter Builders is taking a close look at how it distributes projects to subcontractors, avoiding overloading any one firm and giving extra focus to ensuring any given subcontractor does not have multiple projects ending at the same time.

Huckabee agrees that “competition is insane,” offering as an example bidding on the $40-million, 142,000-sq-ft multipurpose auditorium for Mansfield ISD, which attracted 19 firms. Two years ago, he adds, the project would have cost $70 million. Subcontractors came from as far as Illinois and Canada, hoping to secure work.

Huckabee says that on an intermediate school for La Vega ISD in the Waco area, he expected bids to come in around $16 million; instead, the job went for $12 million.

Greening of the school environment

While many public entities mandate LEED certification, that’s not the case with schools, DeVoe says. But he adds that districts are interested in sustainability and more environmentally friendly buildings.

Charter Builders recently broke ground on a $29-million, 900-seat Lady Bird Johnson Middle School for Irving ISD, designed by Corgan to be a net-zero facility, producing as much energy as it uses. To accomplish that, Corgan incorporated elements to decrease consumption, such as improving insulation of the building envelope, efficient lighting and monitoring systems, fewer electrical outlets and a geothermal heating and cooling system. Rooftop solar panels and 12 high-speed wind turbines will generate electricity.

“Energy costs are large to districts, and they would love to see a way to [reduce the expense],” Corgan’s Smith says. “But at the same time, they want to do that without raising the cost per square foot.”