SAN DIEGO—Erickson-Hall Construction Co. is underway on the $32 million America’s Finest Charter School for the San Diego Unified School District. Erickson-Hall has already completed several other schools for the district.

Erickson-Hall will be providing lease-leaseback services for the project, which is due to be delivered in four phases. Phase 1 entails ground-up construction of a 25,793-square-foot elementary school, followed by renovating an existing wood frame for the 9,865-square-foot middle school and various exterior and interior work during Phase 2. Phase 3 encompasses removing temporary classroom facilities and installing play areas. Finally, Phase 4 entails construction of a 7,598-square-foot multipurpose building, as well as various other site work.

Erickson-Hall is working with designer OBR Architecture on the project.

“This project is a large undertaking, but one that Erickson-Hall is well equipped for and excited to take on,” said Erickson-Hall President Mat Gates. “We look forward to creating a facility for America’s Finest Charter School that will shape the lives of countless students, and be of benefit to the district as a whole.”

Erickson-Hall has over $2 billion in construction projects to its resume, including $1.5 billion in the K-12 and higher education sectors. The Southern California firm has been in operation since 1998, offering preconstruction, general contracting, construction management, design-build, design assist-build, lease-leaseback and program management services.

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RIALTO, Calif.—Administrators and members of the public gathered recently with personnel from Southern California general contractor Erickson-Hall Construction Co. to commemorate groundbreaking for the modernization project at Eisenhower High School in San Bernardino County.

Erickson-Hall, which has extensive experience in the educational construction sector, will build from scratch nearly 55,000 square feet of classroom space, as well as install patios, walkways, parking areas and electrical car charging stations. Renovations at Eisenhower will also entail enhanced technological capabilities as well as exterior “collaboration spaces.” Courtyard landscaping and irrigation improvements are also part of the overall plan for the site.

“Eisenhower High School students, staff and the general public will benefit from this new construction project,” Dr. Cuauhtémoc Avila, school superintendent, said during the groundbreaking ceremony. “This construction will open opportunities for enhanced learning and open-space concept instruction. We are pleased to partner with Erickson-Hall for this project knowing their exceptional work delivering like-projects for nearby districts.”

Erickson-Hall is working with designers Bernard Jester and Juan Cantoran at Ruhnau Clarke on the job, which is estimated to take somewhere between one-and-a-half and three years all told.

“We are honored to be entrusted with the responsibility of transforming Eisenhower High School into a modern campus that will inspire generations of students to come,” Erickson-Hall President Mat Gates said of his firm’s contract. “We recognize the significance of this project and the impact it will have on the community, and our team is excited to start work. Together, alongside Eisenhower High School and the Rialto Unified School District, we hope to create a space that will foster creativity, innovation and academic excellence for every student that uses it.”

Erickson-Hall has delivered approximately $1.5 billion in K-12 and higher education projects. The firm, which provides preconstruction and construction management services, operates throughout Southern California.

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ESCONDIDO, Calif.—General contractor Erickson-Hall has broken ground on a new athletics facility at this Southern California college. Construction personnel as well as staff from the college gathered in December for a groundbreaking ceremony for the $22.8 million football stadium and softball fields at the school’s San Marcos campus. Palomar College, which was founded in 1946, has never had a football stadium to call its own, and has continually had to play its games at nearby high schools.

The softball stadium will be able to seat 207 people, and will feature batting cages, dugouts, press box, field house and bullpens. Palomar’s softball team is rather respected in the area considering it has taken home eight consecutive championships in the Pacific Coast Athletic Conference.

Meanwhile, the football stadium, which will feature a synthetic turf field and three-story press box, will be able to house nearly 4,000 fans. The stadium will host the first football games to be played at Palomar in over 75 years. Additionally, it will also serve as host to other large events such as graduations.

“The anticipation from the community and student body for Palomar College’s new athletic facilities makes it such a rewarding project,” Mat Gates, Erickson-Hall’s president, said in a recent statement. “We can’t wait to celebrate with Palomar College when they can finally host their first home football game, and see their stellar softball team thrive in their new home!”

HMC Architects designed both of the athletic facilities at the San Marcos campus. In a phone conversation with School Construction News, HMC partner Brad Glassick said that one of the main challenges of constructing new athletic grounds was running into “undocumented utilities” below ground.

“It’s crucial to bring creativity to [solving] a problem you discover in the field,” Glassick said. “That’s proven true here at Palomar.”

Glassick said that one of the ways the project was able to achieve its timeline was working on the bleachers early, which shaved several months off of the project’s lead time.

“We are actually already into the deferred approval process rather than trying to get the bleacher shop drawings done, so that was one way we tried to short-circuit any schedule impacts,” he said.

His firm must also contend with supply chain issues related to electrical switch gear, requiring the architect to potentially make use of others options.

“We’ve looked at a couple different alternative pieces of equipment, so we still have to determine if they meet our project needs,” he said.

Construction on Palomar’s new softball and football stadium is ongoing, with a potential finish date projected for this coming October.

Of the architect’s collaboration with Erickson-Hall, Glassick praised the work HMC has undertaken thus far with the general contractor.

“We don’t have silos, we don’t have our corners to retreat to,” he said. “We all just want to be getting our work done for Palomar College, because we all know the faster we get the work done, the better we are as businesses and [being] successful on the project.”

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HERMOSA BEACH, Calif.—The Hermosa Vista School, located in the Southern California beachfront community of Hermosa Beach, opened to raves this spring, with students even able to attend in-person classes at the new learning institution. Hermosa Vista School encompasses both a main two-story administration/classroom/library building as well as a second building that can serve multiple purposes as needed.

The new school campus, located at 417 25^th St., sits on the site of the former North School. The old school was removed to make room for Hermosa Vista, where Hermosa’s third and fourth graders will attend classes. Erickson Hall, with offices in Escondido in San Diego County, was the project’s general contractor.

Sustainability was the name of the game for Hermosa Vista, and an effort was made by designer SVA Architects to ensure that the school was as energy-efficient as possible. SVA’s plans aimed to make the school be “zero net energy,” and accordingly, their schematics included highly efficient MEP systems and photovoltaic solar arrays on both buildings. This way, the school campus can generate its own energy rather than tapping into a Southern California energy grid.

Although the doors of Hermosa Vista didn’t open until 2021, the designs and plans had been underway for the new school since Measure S was passed by area voters in 2016. The bond appropriated $59 million to address the problem of overcrowding in the city’s antiquated school buildings.

The school district tapped SVA Architects, headquartered in nearby Santa Ana, for the job based on the designer’s previous work for such local clientele as the Redondo Beach Unified School District. SVA has worked with its several educational clients to deliver buildings that are sustainable and offer a minimally invasive environmental impact.

“Hermosa Vista School is an example of design meeting the future, highlighting remarkable achievements in facility sustainability,” Robert Simons, AIA, president of SVA Architects, said in a recent statement about the school project. “The students and teachers will enjoy a modern, enhanced learning environment, and the sustainable features will benefit the entire community, while representing shared values and vision.”

A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held on May 15 after the school formally opened its doors to students on April 13. According to the Daily Breeze, the Saturday-afternoon ribbon-cutting was complemented with a Hermosa Beach Education Foundation fundraiser whose aim was to get cash to local organizations.

Hermosa Vista School is the first of three school projects funded by moneys set aside by Measure S. In addition, Hermosa View School, where kindergarten through second graders are educated, will be redesigned and updated, as will Hermosa Valley School for the district’s fifth to eighth graders.

Designer SVA Architects was founded in 2003. In addition to its local headquarters in Santa Ana, the company also has satellite offices in Oakland, San Diego and Honolulu.

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