Widely known in Texas for its eponymous festival and its Czech roots, the city of West suffered an April 2013 explosion at a local fertilizer plant that caused several deaths and destroyed many homes and businesses and three of the district’s four schools. Realizing that it could not afford to rebuild three campuses, the district devised a dual-campus solution by realigning the 5th grade into the elementary school and bringing 6th through 12th grades under the same roof.

West Independent School District’s new $45.65-million campus has three facilities: a high school, middle school and civic center. Built with insulated concrete forms as the main structural components, the 226,000-sq-ft campus also features a tornado shelter with 14-in.-thick precast concrete walls designed to withstand an EF-5 tornado. West High is the first International Code Council 500 tornado shelter to be funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

In addition to the new school, the project team constructed a 70,000-sq-ft temporary campus for students for the 2013-14 school year. It accommodated 700 students in 17 modular buildings, some of which were manufactured, while others were donated.

Three weeks of rain delayed work at the outset. To catch up, the team worked evenings and weekends with increased manpower and bigger workloads, while using the rains to help determine how much fill to lay and where to place it.

The project was delivered within budget and on time.

Related Article: Diverse Projects Named Region’s Best