Organized Labor

Ongoing Construction, Renovation Projects Funded by $430-Million Bond

By Paul Burton, Contributing Writer

Several more projects covered by the project labor agreement between the Building Trades and San Francisco Unified School District are currently underway in the city this summer.
Organized Labor recently visited two job sites—Downtown High School and Herbert Hoover Middle School. The work at the two schools is largely to bring them into compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) that mandates that schools be accessible to disabled, or handicapped students. The work is funded through $450 million in general-obligation bonds approved by SF voters in 2006 to continue SFUSD’s building improvement work—including meeting disability-access requirements and health and safety codes, and rehabilitating the buildings and grounds of 64 schools in the SFUSD.

The PLA was approved by the SF School Board on June 24, 2008. The school board adopted the PLA upon the recommendation of SFUSD legal counsel Phillip Henderson and Chief Facilities Officer David Goldin, who read a supporting resolution which states in part, “It is critical that those projects be completed on time for purposes of effectively operating schools and to avoid the increased costs caused by construction delay,” and “the projects require skilled, qualified craft and trade persons to meet the demands of the construction and renovation work.”

SFUSD Director of Construction for the Bond program, Maureen Shelton, said, “the main thrust of the projects is to bring the schools into compliance with the rulings in Lopez vs. SFUSD which requires the district to make certain schools accessible under the ADA.” The 2006 bond measure was proposed and passed as a way to fund the upgrades to the schools following the Lopez lawsuit against the district to make schools more accessible to disabled students.

But because the renovations often call for reconfiguring access areas, demolishing walls, and tearing up floors, some hazardous materials that were part of the original construction first needed to be removed, or abated. Shelton explained that often when renovating older schools, built before some of the stricter environmental regulations of the 1970s, hazardous materials are present. She said when lead paint is present or asbestos is encountered in older floor tiles, the mastic adhesive and pipe insulation, qualified abatement specialists are called in to remove the materials. Those are generally members of Laborers Local 67 who specialize in hazardous materials abatement.

Downtown High School
The first phase of the Downtown High School project began earlier this year and involved removal of hazardous materials. A crew of about 20 laborers began on the first floor and were working on the second floor when Organized Labor visited the site at the end of June. Construction crews are now preparing the area at the front entrance of the school for the installation of a ramp and rails for disability access. Project Manager Huy Hoang of AECOM, the construction management company for the Downtown High School job, said that the first priority was ADA accessibility and the second priority was fire safety. New sprinklers will be installed as part of the modernization of the school.

The general contractor for the $5.9 million project is Bollo Construction from West Sacramento. The original estimate for the project was around $7 million but all of the bids from the nine contractors who bid on the project came in well under that figure.

The District describes the project as consisting of “General School Modernization and reconstruction including ADA Access and Fire/Life-Safety upgrades, including but not limited to fire alarm system, sprinkler system, security system, wireless clock and bell system, phone system, light fixtures, hot water system, elevator, toilets, exterior windows, built-up roofing and drains, interior and exterior painting, floor finishes, ceilings, miscellaneous site work, hazardous material/Asbestos remediation and other miscellaneous interior renovation work.

Work will also include renovating the bathrooms to make them accessible, with some new fixtures, as well as installing new ramps and railings. Hoang said a new elevator will also be installed in the four-story building. Most of the work will be completed this summer but temporary bungalows have also been placed behind the school to serve as classrooms when some of the interior work is being done during the school year.

Hoang said part of the job of managing the project is making sure contractors follow specific requirements of the contract to make sure the construction doesn’t impact students and minimizes noise and disruptions in the neighborhood.

Most of the contractors on the SFUSD projects have experience on school jobs and deal well with the tight scheduling needed to complete the jobs and perform the work in a way that doesn’t impact the students. While contracts are awarded based on lowest bid, the experience with school projects is also a benefit for the District. The SFUSD’s Shelton told Organized Labor last year that contractors and their workforce know “how to control noise and dirt, how to set up the hard barriers to maintain separation between school activities and construction. We have outlined a set of specifications for what can be done during the day and what has to be done after hours,” she said.

Downtown High School is a four-story structure built in 1937, located at 693 Vermont Street. It has 272 students in grades 9 – 12. K2A Architects did the design work for the project. Subcontractors include Norcal nd G-Flor for flooring work, Dinacoustics for acoustical ceilings, Petersen Dean for the roofing work, JC Metals for structural steel, DLI for plumbing, Capitol

Valley for electrical work, Parc for Soft Demo and Hazmat, and Monarch for HVAC and boilers.

Crews of carpenters, laborers, electrical workers, painters and plumbers are currently on the job

Herbert Hoover Middle School
The Herbert Hoover Middle School project is being managed by McCarthy, with Cal-Pacific as the General Contractor. The five-story school in the Sunset District was built in 1956 and has an enrollment of 1,250 students in grades 6–8. Cal-Pacific has worked on other projects for the SFUSD and has experience dealing with scheduling work around the school day and other issues with school construction. The company was the general contractor for work at Sutro Elementary School done as part of the Bond program.

McCarthy’s Project Manager, Santiago Harris, gave Organized Labor a tour of the jobsite in early July when the first phase of the project that included hazardous materials abatement had just been completed. Harris said there was a big push to get all the work done in the public or common areas before school starts again in late August. Other work will be done in phases in different parts of the school during the school year and will be completed by the end of Dec. 2011. Sixteen bungalows were recently installed to serve as temporary classrooms when school starts. A crew of electrical workers completed the connections to the bungalows in early July.

As with the Downtown HS project, the Hoover Middle School job involves modernization of the building to bring it into compliance with ADA requirements. An existing elevator will be replaced and two new ones installed by a crew of union elevator constructors with Mitsubishi Elevators out of San Francisco. Harris said one of the new elevators would be installed at street level that would bring students up to the auditorium/performing arts center now only accessible from a driveway on 14th Avenue. A new canopy connecting the auditorium and the main entrance to the school will also be installed.

The school’s 270 windows will all be replaced. Removing the windows and frames that contain lead paint will be done this summer. Harris pointed out that even though the project isn’t seeking LEED certification to meet Green Building requirements, the newer, more energy-efficient windows will be an improvement. Many of the existing windows leak at this time. Likewise the three old boilers used for heating and hot water will be replaced and new controls installed. Harris said two of the boilers installed in the 1930s didn’t work and asbestos insulation had to be removed from the boiler room.

Other work being done at HHMS includes reconfiguring common areas for disability access, installing new fire sprinkler systems and drinking fountains, renovating bathrooms to make them accessible and add new fixtures, changing the heating and mechanical systems, installing new sheet rock, upgrading locker rooms for ADA access, and extensive roofing work. Contractors on the job include T & T Electric, Pioneer Roofing, Mitsubishi Elevators, KM McRae Drilling, JC Metal, DR Robert for sprinklerfitting, Cal-Pacific Plumbing, Orson Mechanical for HVAC, and LA

Paz Plastering. McCarthy is an employee-owned company that has done more than $3 billion in K-12 education construction projects across the U.S over the past 20 years America.
Crews of roofers, electrical workers, elevator constructors, laborers, carpenters, and plumbers are currently on the job.

Not all the subcontractors on the SFUSD Bond Program projects are union, however the PLA ensures that all workers on the construction projects are employed under fair and equitable employment conditions. All contractors are required to pay the prevailing wage and employ registered apprentices, and are encouraged to hire local residents. It also provides a mechanism for resolving disputes “for the benefit of efficient construction, stable employment relations, and the avoidance of delay.”

There are 43 projects in the works for the SFUSD that are subject to the terms of the PLA, out of a total of 58 projects. Work will involve improving health and safety standards, including installing fire sprinkler systems, repairing elevators and replacing drinking fountains; making building repairs such as fixing bathrooms and repairing or replacing electrical and plumbing systems; improving accessibility for students with disabilities by installing ramps, signs, assistive listening devices and making other needed repairs and replacements; and performing needed environmental improvements, including removing materials containing asbestos.

In addition to the two projects at Downtown High School and Herbert Hoover Middle School, work this summer is being done at other school sites, including Raoul Wallenberg High School, Grattan Elementary, and others.