Due to Construction of the Lower Campus, Xcel will need to shut down power to a part of the neighborhood on Tuesday, April 2nd.  School will not be in session due to Spring Break, however, neighbors within a certain area of around the school need to know.  It will be down for a total of 8 hours.

Xcel should notify the neighbors who will be affected as soon as they know the zone.  If you will be gone during Spring Break, please be aware that you will not have electricity on that date.

LHCS Communication team has asked if Xcel will notify the neighborhood and which part of the neighborhood will be affected.  More news on this to follow.

Walls are beginning to be visible in the construction process now.  Click the headline for a photo of the progress.

Much of the concrete for the 1st floor is installed, with more being poured today (Tuesday, Dec 4th) and the remainder by the end of the week.    Expect more concrete truck traffic as this happens.
Following the concrete, they will begin setting the precast plank to form the 2nd floor.  This is scheduled to start next Monday and will take about a week.  It should be another interesting event to watch, complete with big trucks and a crane setting them into place.
Upcoming: After the 2nd floor precast planks, the construction crews will finish setting the steel beams and then will add another "level" of the precast plank to form the roof.    It is really coming together!

BUILDING FRAME TO BE ERECTED NEXT WEEK

The crews have laid all of the groundwork, and now the (above-ground) CONSTRUCTION of our Lower Campus addition will begin early next week!
The steel beams for the 1st and 2nd floors of the building frame will arrive this Monday, November 12, 2012.  We expect four truckloads of steel beams to be delivered along with the erector's equipment (crane and forklift).  The crane will move the beams directly into their upright position from the truck.  If you are interested in watching, plan for the four trucks to arrive each hour from 7am until  the last arrives at 10am.  Please remember that the trucks' route is from France Avenue down 41st street, up Chowen to 40th Street and back to France Avenue.  Please be advised of LARGE delivery trucks on that route if you bring your child to school on Monday morning.   It will take about 1-2 weeks to erect the  1st and 2nd stories of the building.  

This week the crews are placing vapor barrier to prepare for the concrete slab to be poured next Friday.

Lower Campus Construction Weekly UPDATE
 
All piles are in!  The pounding is done!  And all of the concrete pile caps have been completed!  They are going to start building the elevator shaft for the new addition.  They also started to pour the concrete grade beams on Monday.  This process will be lengthly - So same as before: concrete trucks will be entering and leaving the site.  They will backfill the areas where grade beams are complete, so next week we will begin to see some tractors pushing dirt piles around too.

Xcel has been installing new Electrical line and will switch from using the old line to the new line today, Tuesday September 18th. A power outage will occur in the neighborhood from 5pm-11pm today.  
 
All remaining piling work that had been on hold due to the Xcel power line switch is expected to be completed in 2 weeks.
Concrete trucks will continue coming and going, as crews are working on forming and pouring the concrete caps for the pilings.  Crews are also working on the elevator base and storm water drainage.

There was a ceremonial ground breaking event held at the LHCS Lower Campus to celebrate the beginning of construction for our Lower Campus addition, which will include the classrooms we need to accommodate the children in grades K-2, allow us to add the 3rd grade to that campus and provide Art and Music rooms too!  The event was attended by LHCS students, parents and Administrators, Jan Parrish and Mary Rynchek, as well as Superintendent of MPS, Bernadia Johnson.  Also in attendance were Rick Mills, MPS CEO, Mark Bollinger, MPS Chief Administrative Officer, David Richards of MPS Facilities Planner, Don Belinski, MPS Construction Coordinator, Stan Alleyne, MPS Director of Communications and Jeff Reuter and David Cross of Luken Architecture.   Thanks to Kristen Kelker and several other parents for organizing and to the Southwest High School Pep band for providing music for the event. Check out these great photos!

Ground Breaking Ceremony Video
Here's a great video taken from the Ground Breaking Ceremony which covers all aspects of the process.  Many thanks to Chris Gegax of Signal Video Productions for creating this wonderful coverage of the event!

Included in this update are the images from the boards presented at  ground breaking ceremony on Tuesday, August 21st.

The Minneapolis School Board met on July 10, 2012 and approved Merrimac Construction as the company which will build the lower campus addition.  They will provide regular communications of activities about the project for the school and community.  Through the remainder of the summer this information will be distributed via the LHCS Construction web page and occasional summer editions of the Connect Online.  

Site staging is nearly complete.  This includes marking locations for the building, placing trailer and dumpsters and installing a safety fence along the perimeter. Demolition of the affected areas of the existing structure (the former Art room which was used last year for Mrs. Chhun's first grade and the office) will happen very soon. Demolition is scheduled August 6, with piling to begin August 13. Every effort will be made to complete the piling installation (pounding) prior to the start of school.  

Project Description:

A careful analysis of student enrollment and available facilities at the Lake Harriet School by District curriculum and facilities departments indicated that 3rd grade would need to be relocated to the Lake Harriet Lower Campus. In order to accommodate the anticipated additional 150 students, it was determined that an addition to the existing school would be required. The Luken Architecture, PA design team was retained to perform the work of the project.

This is the eleventh community update from the Construction Site Committee.  The purpose of this update is to share the information presented to both the Site and Steering Committees on 4/17/12.   The purpose of the meeting was to come to agreement on specific design question related to the new lunch room.  Click the title for the entire update.  

This is the eleventh community update from the Construction Site Committee. The purpose of this update is to share the information presented to both the Site and Steering Committees on 4/17/12. The purpose of the meeting was to come to agreement on specific design question related to the new lunch room.

This is the tenth community update from the Construction Site Committee.  The purpose of this update is to share the information presented to both the Site and Steering Committees on 3/27/12.   At the meeting, Ellen Luken, from Luken Architecture, shared an update on the floor plan development.  And Bertrand Weber the new MPS Nutrition Director spoke about the new school lunch program.  Click the title for the entire update.  

This is the ninth community update from the Construction Site Committee.  The purpose of this update is to share the information presented to both the Site and Steering Committees on 3/13/12.   At the meeting, Ellen Luken, from Luken Architecture, shared an update on the exterior design concepts.

This is the eighth community update from the Construction Site Committee.  The purpose of this update is to share the information presented to both the Site and Steering Committees on 2/21/12.   At the meeting, Ellen Luken, from Luken Architecture, shared a few options for the exterior style and materials, storm water management as well as a few other updates.  Please click the title for the entire update.

This is the seventh community update from the Construction Site Committee.  The purpose of this update is to share the information presented to both the Site and Steering Committees on 2/7/12.   At the meeting, Ellen Luken, from Luken Architecture, shared an update on the latest design Concept 11.  Please click the title to read the entire article. 

Click here to see the latest plans in progress for the lower campus expansion.  There are separate plans for the first and second floor, and the area shaded in gray is the existing building.

This is the sixth community update from the Construction Site Committee.  The purpose of this update is to share the information presented to both the Site and Steering Committees on 1/31/12.  At the meeting, Ellen Luken, from Luken Architecture, shared a brief update on the design based on the feedback received from the public forum.....Click the title for the entire update article. 

This is the fifth community update from the Construction Site Committee.  The purpose of this update is to share the information presented to both the Site and Steering Committees on 1/23/12.   At the 1/23 meeting, Ellen Luken, from Luken Architecture, presented the new Concepts 7-10, which also included estimated costs. This update also includes a brief summary of the discussion at the Public Forum on 1/24/12.  

This is the third community update from the Construction Site Committee.  The purpose of this update is to share the information presented to both the Site and Steering Committees on 1/10/12.  Ted Rozeboom, an Educational Space Planner and consultant to Luken Architecture, presented the master plan for lower campus AND a more detailed layout for the “Concept 6” option. Please note Concept 6 is a preliminary design and in the next phase of design process the preliminary design will be reconciled with construction and project budgets.....

Click the title to see the entire article. 

This is the third community update from the Construction Site Committee.  The purpose of this update is to share the information presented to both the Site and Steering Committees on 1/10/12.  Ted Rozeboom, an Educational Space Planner and consultant to Luken Architecture, presented the master plan for lower campus AND a more detailed layout for the “Concept 6” option. Please note Concept 6 is a preliminary design and in the next phase of design process the preliminary design will be reconciled with construction and project budgets.

Two doucments in pdf format show Conceptual Plan 5 and Conceptual Plan 6 for the Southeast addition options.  Each pdf file is four sheets.  The first sheet shows four massing renderings from different views.  A massing rendering is a very preliminary block diagram that does not show details of the exterior such as doors and windows or the type of exterior yet.  The subsequent sheets show the ground floor, 1st florr and second floor plans.  The blue line on each plan denotes the existing school. 

You can see all three floor plans for each concept on the Concepts 5 and 6 Floor Plans Composite document. 

Please note that this represents a work in progress and the design process is still very fluid at this stage.  Updates will be forthcoming following future meetings.

This is the second community update from the Construction Site Committee.  The purpose of this update is to share the information presented to both the Site and Steering Committees on 12/13/11.  Jeff Reuter of Luken Architecture showed massing of site plans and Ted Rozeboom, an Educational Space Planner and consultant to Luken Architecture, presented some preliminary layouts of some of the potential site locations.  Click on the title above or here for the entire update. 

Report from Construction Committees

At this point, there has been one Construction Site Committee meeting (held on November 29th) and one Construction Steering Committee meeting (on December 6th).  Both of these committees value the input of the community.  Joel Stensrud, a Construction Site Committee member, has graciously agreed to gather parent’s questions and ask them on the Community’s behalf at the Site Committee meetings.  He will compile the Q/A and post it on the school website.  Please send your questions to Joel at: jstensrud@comcast.net (click the title to keep reading).

Good news LHCS families: the planning/design phase has begun for the addition to the LHCS lower campus.  This is the first community update from the Construction Site Committee.  The purpose of this update is to share the information presented at the first public forum meeting that was held on November 29^th, 2011.  David Richards, MPS Facilities Department Planning Manager, spoke at the public forum and provided the following information. (click the title to keep reading)

As you know, the District has approved an addition to the LHCS lower campus.  At the last District School Board meeting Luken Architecture was named the firm that will design the addition.  To assist in moving forward, two new committees have been formed to assist in the plans of the lower campus addition.   These two groups will work as a complimentary pairing during project design phase as the plan for the school addition is developed.  Each committee may involve as many as ten meetings. (click the title to keep reading)

Click the title for the list of committee members.

View the PTA Advocacy page for background on the approval process in September 2011.