PORT TOWNSEND — The Port Townsend School District will go to voters next month for a 20-year, $99.25 million construction bond.
Should the Feb. 10 bond pass with a 60 percent supermajority, the money would go toward renovations and expansions at the Port Townsend High School campus.
Voter pamphlets are expected to arrive today, and they will include for and against statements.
The project is budgeted beyond the bond, totaling $108,565,559, according to the district’s dedicated webpage, ptschools.org/page/bond2026. Users can find details on the district’s reasons for renovating, budget breakdowns and answers to commonly asked questions on the site.
The renovations will seek to retain the historic brick facades, per overwhelming feedback, district Superintendent Dr. Linda Rosenbury said.
The campus’ main building would receive an expanded footprint and a renovation of its current footprint.
The building would see an improved cafeteria and the ceilings would be raised to their former height, which would improve natural light, among other things.
The annex building, built with hollow clay tile siding, was found to be particularly vulnerable to seismic events and is planned to be removed. Nothing is planned to fill the opened space yet, Rosenbury said.
“That plan did not make it into the scope of this bond, because we were trying to keep the amount down,” she said.
The gym and the school’s career and technical education (CTE) classrooms, housed in the same building, also will receive renovations and seismic improvements.
Estimates for the bond amount were $90 million as of last spring. The increased number reflects further assessment completed by cost estimators and the architecture firm, Rosenbury said.
Without the added request, the project could not include seismic or other improvements to the gym or CTE rooms, she added.
After purchasing a used computer numerical control (CNC) routing machine from Edensaw Woods, Ltd., to modernize wood shop learning, staff learned that the building’s electrical infrastructure was inadequate to power it, Rosenbury said.
Across Benton Street is the Gale Stuart building, which previously housed the media and art classrooms and which currently houses district administration offices. The building is planned to be renovated as the new campus for the OCEAN K-12 alternative school, which currently is located in modular units behind Blue Heron Middle School. The school currently has a waiting list for students in third through eighth grades.
District administrators would relocate their offices to available spaces on the high school campus and/or to the modular units left behind by the OCEAN move.
If the bond passes, the district would move ahead into a more detailed design phase this spring and then would begin applying for permits, probably over the summer, Rosenbury said. Construction could start as early as this fall.
The median home value in the district is sitting at $570,000, Rosenbury said. An owner of a $600,000 home would pay about $400 annually for the bond in property taxes, or about $34 a month, she said.
If approved, the bond likely would be the last major construction being pursued in the coming decades, Rosenbury said, noting that the district renovated Salish Coast Elementary School recently and that Blue Heron Middle School is relatively new, built in 1995.
Both of those schools are in very good shape in terms of the safety, she said.
Last year, the district scheduled campus tours, open to the public, during which attendees could see the campus and seek answers to questions about facility needs in person. Final campus tours are scheduled from 10:30 a.m. to noon Feb. 3. Information on attending can be found at the district’s bond webpage.
Aside from general concerns about homeowners’ increased tax burdens, Rosenbury said she has heard a few concerns. One revolves around the completed construction at the elementary school looking different than plans suggested. Rosenbury noted that a solution for that problem came when the district secured a progressive design-build team composed of Abbott Construction and Rice Fergus Miller Architects.
“There were some things (at the elementary school) that were value engineered out and maybe the communication on that wasn’t clear,” Rosenbury said.
Having a design-build team means the architects and builders are working together throughout the project.
Abbott Construction was a part of a progressive design-build recently completed for Jefferson Healthcare’s new hospital wing.
Critiques about the elementary school’s construction having some accessibility issues are being addressed by bringing a student and an adult consultant, both of whom use wheelchairs, into the planning process, Rosenbury said.
Another common line of inquiry asks whether or not the school needs to expand, considering enrollment trends dipping across the state, Rosenbury said. The school district is not seeing reduced enrollment, and younger age groups, which will use the school in coming years, are not showing signs of decreasing, she added.
Rosenbury also offered perspective on the broad impact that increasing campus safety and generally improving facilities could bring for the community.
“I’ve heard from local employers that when they’re trying to recruit new candidates from outside the community, one of the top questions that (they) ask is, ‘How are the schools?’” Rosenbury said.
Two of the four are great, but the alternative school and the high school need more capacity and increased safety measures, respectively, Rosenbury said.
Further changes will come to the campus when the historic Lincoln building is removed. The demolition and removal was funded by 2012 and 2025 capital levy dollars.
The opening footprint will be filled with a courtyard where the students can enjoy their lunches with views of the Strait of Juan de Fuca and will allow for a school bus loop internal to campus, Rosenbury said. As it is, students need to stand on the street to get on and off the buses.
Following two failed attempts to pass a levy in 2008, the public has approved a total of 10 levies and bonds for the district, according to a presentation given by DA Davidson Managing Director Cory Plager at the Jan. 15 Port Townsend School District board of directors meeting.
Student Sienna Vasquez-Wind is serving on the district’s facilities advisory committee for her senior project. The project saw her visiting other modernized historic campuses.
“Seeing these buildings’ transformed layouts inspired and excited me about the possibilities for the future of the Port Townsend High School campus,” Vasquez-Wind wrote. “Many of the schools had modernized spaces with natural light — something that many of our current students seek on the PT campus now. Seeing this proved that we don’t have to choose between history and progression.”
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Reporter Elijah Sussman can be reached by email at elijah.sussman@peninsuladailynews.com.
