Houston Middle's future still uncertain

PALMER— One month before the Nov. 30, 2018, magnitude 7.0 earthquake that shook Southcentral Alaska and forced Houston Middle School students to join together with their older counterparts to form Houston Jr. Sr. High School, the Mat-Su Borough School District had signed a contract for an engineer to report on seismic strength of the school buildings.

Now nearly two years following the earthquake, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has yet to make a determination on if HMS meets their 50 percent rule, necessitating a complete replacement of the school building rather than rebuilding around the existing structure.

“The structural analysis and cost estimates have revealed that the admin wing has significant damage and construction quality issues that will cost more to repair than to demolish and rebuild,” said MSBSD Executive Director of Operations Mike Brown. “There are some construction quality issues in the gymnasium wing as well. However, when the architect and engineer went through that wing of the building, they determined that they could repair those issues in the gymnasium and that cost would not exceed the cost to rebuild it entirely.”

The MSBSD School Board considered an amendment to Resolution 20-001 on Wednesday, allowing the administration wing to be completely demolished and rebuilt if during the construction period it is determined that it would be cost effective. Brown reported that when the building was built in 1985 there was no reinforcing steel in the foundation and footers, there was insufficient rebar in the walls, beam connections and bond beams were not grouted, and improper welds and steel connections were installed causing failures throughout the administration wing when the earthquake hit. In June, Brown provided a cost estimate of $31 million to replace the classroom wing and repair the administrative wing and gymnasium. If the building was to only be repaired, it could only meet 62 percent of current building code, where it could comply wholly if it was completely demolished and rebuilt. An initial estimate of $15 million was provided only to repair the existing structure, $34.5 million to repair the administrative wing and gymnasium and completely replace the classroom wing, and $48 million to completely demolish and rebuild the entire building.

“It is important to remember that these are cost estimates and until we get this design out on the street for competitive bidding, we’re not really going to know absolutely what those numbers are going to be and typically your cost estimators are going to be conservative so they’re going to build in some room so that they don’t estimate a project under what it actually builds out for,” said Brown.

Board Member Ryan Ponder asked if the faulty construction in 1985 would be cause to sue the builders. Board Member Jim Hart asked if other buildings had similar issues that were built around the same time.

“We’ve already had an engineer go out and look at all of the buildings following a Federally defined process to determine where we should invest money to do seismic mitigation,” said Brown.

Board Member Ole Larson wondered aloud why the whole building would not be rebuilt if the cost estimate was only slightly higher. The board resolution approved August 6 was amended to outline the advantages of new construction of the administrative wing.

“If the two thirds of the building didn’t make it through the earthquake because of the building codes at the time, I don’t see how the gymnasium would not be in the same predicament and if the rebuild of the gym is within a million dollars or so, I don’t know why we wouldn’t just rip the whole complex down and start over again,” said Larson. “I would like to know what the difference would be to build a new gym complex versus to repair the old one. It just doesn’t make sense if you’re going to do two thirds of the building, why not just do the whole thing.”

Board members questioned if another amendment was required to allow for a complete reconstruction if necessary. Brown said that action was not necessary on Wednesday, and the School Board could bring the existing resolution to their joint meeting with the Assembly on September 8.

“All hope is not lost. There is still hope there even though It’s been two years,” said Superintendent Dr. Randy Trani. “There’ll be in an opportunity for you to reconsider this if we get in one of those gray areas.”

Brown said that he hopes to have the resolution approved in it’s entirety to go out to bid for contractors by late September.