Last Tuesday, the Northeast Community Propel Academy, a K-8 school with the capacity for 1,660 students, opened In Philadelphia. The 180,000-sf building was financed and constructed through a public-private partnership between the School District of Philadelphia and Gilbane Development Company, which provided turnkey development for the new school.
Gilbane Building Company acted as the project’s design-builder and hired Stantec as its architect. Gilbane was one of three firms that submitted bid proposals to the school district in the fall of 2017, and received the contract the following January, says Susan Tully, Senior Project Manager and Market Leader for Gilbane’s K-12 Center of Excellence. The school’s design was completed by October 2019, and after some municipal delays construction began in March 2020, “on the day the world stopped” because of the coronavirus pandemic, quipped Tully.
Propel Academy is in a multicultural section of Philadelphia that “is booming,” says Tully, with lots of service sector workers. But the number of school seats hadn’t kept pace with the community’s growth; Tully notes that another school there, built for 600 students, now serves 2,000. The district “knew they need to get a new school built quickly,” she recalls.
The school is on land that previously had served as baseball and softball fields. As part of the P3 agreement, Gilbane Development purchased the land from the school district for $1, and upon completion of construction on August 19, 2021 sold the property and school back to the school district for $79 million.
“Speed to market was a driver” for the P3 arrangement, says Luis Vildostegui, Stantec’s Senior Principal and Education Leader, whom BD+C interviewed with Jennifer Grafton, Stantec’s Project Manager and Senior Associate. Vildostegui notes that Propel Academy’s design reflects the school district’s gravitation toward a more socialized teaching model that focuses on learning with peers.
SCHOOL FEATURES COLLABORATIVE ZONES
Gilbane and Stantec, with Fengate Asset Management, were part of a construction financing consortium that in June broke ground on six K-12 schools in Prince George’s County, Md. This was the first P3 for schools in the nation, and it’s expected to cut in half the time it takes to complete those schools, which are scheduled to open in 2023.
In Philadelphia, the Propel Academy project “is one of the most collaborative I’ve worked on in my career,” says Tully. One of its advantages was Gilbane’s relationship with Stantec, which provided architecture, interior design, and civil engineering services. “We were able to advance the construction before the designs were completed, which fast-tracked the project,” says Grafton. And because Stantec had worked previously with the school district and Gilbane, “we could act as an intermediary” when decisions were made, says Vildostegui.
Stantec’s office in Philadelphia is right across the street from the school district’s, so it set up a big room where all of the project’s stakeholders could meet conveniently. “We were all there, resolving problems from the beginning,” says Vildostegui. Any additions or changes during the design or construction process had to be “cost-neutral solutions,” says Tully. (Nicole Ward, AIA, the school district’s design manager, was its liaison on this project.)
Those discussions included “challenging some basic assumptions,” says Vildostegui, like the building’s placement, which is adjacent to a park that exposures city kids to natural environments they might not see otherwise. During the permitting stage, the building team and school district also hashed out whether a retention basin on the site should be above or below ground (they ultimately chose the latter).
The building team’s early collaboration allowed its members to react quicker when there were materials shortages or delays. “We didn’t need to make compromises,” says Tully.
The Propel Academy was build on land that once served as ball fields, and is located near a tree-lined park.
A ‘SHINING SUCCESS STORY’ FOR P3s
Propel Academy is organized into clusters of classrooms and collaborative zones for small learning groups. There are six classrooms per grade for grades 1-5, and nine classrooms per grade for grades 6-8. The classrooms are positioned around shared media and tech commons within each grade level house, and the number of classrooms can be adjusted as needed.
The school also has science labs, music rooms, and “exploration” spaces, says Grafton. “It’s transformative,” says Vildostegui about the school’s design, that had to meet what Tully calls the school district’s “strict design standards” that are informed by LEED and WELL guidelines.
Tully sees Propel Academy as a “test case” for the school district, and believes P3 financial agreements will be more in vogue for financing school construction to meet clients’ demands for speed. “It’s a shining success story” for the P3 approach, adds Vildostegui. “It’s not for every project, but it’s quicker than a traditional design-bid-build because the issues get moved upfront.”
Related Stories
K-12 Schools | Mar 6, 2023
Benefitting kids through human-centric high school design
Ingrid Krueger, AIA, LEED AP, shares why empathetic, well-designed spaces are critical in high schools.
Sustainability | Mar 2, 2023
The next steps for a sustainable, decarbonized future
For building owners and developers, the push to net zero energy and carbon neutrality is no longer an academic discussion.
K-12 Schools | Feb 18, 2023
Atlanta suburb opens $85 million serpentine-shaped high school designed by Perkins&Will
In Ellenwood, Ga., a southeast suburb of Atlanta, Perkins and Will has partnered with Clayton County Public Schools and MEJA Construction to create a $85 million secondary school. Morrow High School, which opened in fall 2022, serves more than 2,200 students in Clayton County, a community with students from over 30 countries.
K-12 Schools | Feb 11, 2023
An elementary school in Canada for intellectually challenged kids completes a three-year-long facelift
Last fall, the Yaldei School in Montreal, Quebec, which provides education and therapy to children ages 4 through 16 with intellectual disabilities, completed a $4.5 million renovation of the three-story former parochial school that it had moved into in 2016. The goal of this project, by the firm Stendel + Reich Architecture, was to create spaces that relieve students’ anxiety and make things fun.
Giants 400 | Feb 9, 2023
New Giants 400 download: Get the complete at-a-glance 2022 Giants 400 rankings in Excel
See how your architecture, engineering, or construction firm stacks up against the nation's AEC Giants. For more than 45 years, the editors of Building Design+Construction have surveyed the largest AEC firms in the U.S./Canada to create the annual Giants 400 report. This year, a record 519 firms participated in the Giants 400 report. The final report includes 137 rankings across 25 building sectors and specialty categories.
Giants 400 | Feb 6, 2023
2022 Reconstruction Sector Giants: Top architecture, engineering, and construction firms in the U.S. building reconstruction and renovation sector
Gensler, Stantec, IPS, Alfa Tech, STO Building Group, and Turner Construction top BD+C's rankings of the nation's largest reconstruction sector architecture, engineering, and construction firms, as reported in the 2022 Giants 400 Report.
K-12 Schools | Jan 25, 2023
As gun incidents grow, schools have beefed up security significantly in recent years
Recently released federal data shows that U.S. schools have significantly raised security measures in recent years. About two-thirds of public schools now control access to school grounds—not just the building—up from about half in the 2017-18 school year.
ProConnect Events | Jan 16, 2023
6 more BD+C ProConnect Events in 2023 – The videos show why you should participate
ProConnects bring building product manufacturers and suppliers together with architects, contractors, builders, and developers to discuss upcoming projects and learn about new products and technical solutions.
K-12 Schools | Dec 23, 2022
Vacant Target store in Minnesota turned into early childhood education center
Lincoln School, a former 90,000-sf Target retail store in Fergus Falls, Minn., was repurposed into Independent School District 544’s newest campus.
Multifamily Housing | Dec 21, 2022
Bay Area school district builds 122 affordable apartments for faculty and staff
The 122 affordable apartments at 705 Serramonte, Daly City, Calif., were set aside not for faculty and staff at Jefferson Union High School District.