With this project, Core Tech had the opportunity of helping to resolve the overcrowding of Guam’s public schools and improving the education system for our community. For our commitment to quality and safety, we received the Award of Excellence from the Guam Contractors Association and excellent client commendations for our construction of the four new facilities for Okkodo High School, Astumbo Middle School, and Adacao and Liguan Elemen­tary Schools.

 

Scope of Work

Among the four schools, the facilities were designed and built to accommodate a total of 4,000 students with an aggregate footprint of 326,650 square feet of 148 classrooms, laboratories, storage areas, indoor and outdoor athletic facilities, data and communications infrastructure, outdoor walkways and canopies, administrative offices, cafeterias, underground electrical distribution networks, parking spaces, a 12,744-square-foot high school gymnasium, and other site improvements. Keeping in mind the health and safety of our student athletes, Core Tech particularly took care to construct state-of-the-art sports facilities, such as an indoor basketball and volleyball court to meet National Federation of State High School Association standards, a synthetic floor system to cushion impact on athletes, and motorized basketball goals and stacking bleachers.

Although this project did not require LEED® certification, Core Tech incorporated sustainable design elements into the project like maximization of natural lighting to minimize daytime lighting demands. Other features include acoustical wall panels for sound damp­ening and, for the security of the students and faculty, pre-cast concrete wall panels from our pre-cast yard and cast-in-place with reinforced concrete.

 

Challenges

On top of our standard quality control measures, Core Tech took exceptional care with this project to ensure student and client satisfaction. As such, Core Tech conducted partnering meetings to make sure the performance metrics were clearly understood and agreed on by all stakeholders, which required fast track performance by all involved parties. For instance, the government had to settle issues with squatters on the site for Adacao Elementary School before construction could begin, which complicated the scheduling process. But with coordination between the government and the project team, we were able to clear the obstacle and even to help the community by providing access to newly constructed wastewater connections to the island-wide sewer lines.

 

Project execution required flexibility of the project management team and extremely concise communication with suppliers/vendors, subcontractors, and all other parties involved. The project team met on a daily basis to ensure the work moved forward as quickly as possible.

 

Despite the consid­erable challenges encountered, all required scheduling milestones were met or exceeded with zero lost time due to safety incidents during 466,826 hours on the project. In fact, Liguan Elementary School, Astumbo Middle School, and Okkodo High School were completed ahead of schedule and operational for the 2008 to 2009 school year. Adacao Elementary School was also completed ahead of schedule and was ready for use in the 2009 to 2010 school year.