Sausalito school construction proceeds amid funding concerns

One of the few major Marin school construction projects this summer is moving forward, but with some uncertainties ahead.

Above-ground work on the $33 million Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Academy elementary school campus in Sausalito is expected to start at the end of August.

In the meantime, workers are finishing the below-ground utilities installation and grading of retaining walls on the steeply sloped campus, said Jason Cave, project manager for Greystone West, a Sonoma construction management firm. The utilities and site work are expected to be done by the end of July or in August, he said.

The next two steps — new construction and modernization above ground — are dicier. The original schedule called for the Sausalito Marin City School District’s board of trustees to award the construction contracts for the above-ground work in May.

Now it looks like that won’t happen until sometime in August.

“We’re currently negotiating the estimates on the cost of increments 2 and 3,” Cave told trustees, referring to the above-ground building work and modernization. “Right now, we’re $803,000 over budget.”

Also, the district has not received design approval by the Division of the State Architect, which governs all school construction design in California.

“The board can’t award the contracts until we get DSA approval and until we settle the negotiations with the contractor,” Cave said on Wednesday.

The delays on negotiations and DSA approval should not affect the ultimate target completion date for the new construction, which is August 2025, in time for the start of the school year, Cave said. He said there was some wiggle room in the original schedule to allow for such issues.

“New buildings are scheduled to be completed by the end of July 2025, and the field and blacktop are scheduled to be complete by end of January 2026,” Cave said.

School officials, however, said they needed more certainty to be able to plan and organize the next two years.

“If there is any substantial delay that is going to put us past August 2025, and, if so, when will we know that?” David Finnane, school principal, asked Cave at the June board meeting.

Cave said there was always a chance of some glitch “at any time,” but he said he could give a better answer to Finnane’s question after the building foundations are installed.

“Where I would feel fairly confident that we’re beyond some kind of catastrophic delay is once the foundations are in, and all the utilities are tied in with them,” Cave told Finnane. “We’re starting to work above the ground. Most of the unknowns are usually identified below the ground.”

Cave said he expects the project to be at that “fairly confident” stage by the end of this year.

Aside from the disruption of ongoing construction, Finnane and district officials are absorbed this summer in consolidating the school’s two campuses in Marin City and Sausalito into one campus in Sausalito.

The district trustees voted this year to move the middle school from Marin City to Sausalito to save on overhead costs of running two campuses.

When completed, the above-ground work will include a new classroom wing, administration building, library, athletic field and parking lot. The modernization portion will improve an existing multipurpose building and a smaller classroom unit.

Other improvements could include a security system. The system, which is not covered in the current budget, is still under discussion by trustees as to whether to spend $80,000 for a hard-wired plan or $20,000 for a security gate and video camera.

“I think our CBO should scrub the budget and find the $80,000,” trustee Lauren Walters said, referring to Gina Murphy-Garrett, chief business officer. “I think it’s incumbent on this board to provide security for students and staff.”

Money for the rest of Sausalito campus improvements is coming out of the proceeds from Measure P, a $41.6 million bond measure approved by district voters in 2020.

The bond was also supposed to cover a new $5.8 million athletic field at the Marin City campus, but the district ran out of money to finish it, Cave said.

The DSA has already approved the design on the athletic field, and the district is seeking other funding by applying for a facilities hardship grant of $500,000 to $4 million and a $770,000 state modernization grant, Cave said.

The district is also installing a solar array and backup battery power system at the Marin City campus, he said. Those projects are being funded, in part, through a grant from Marin Clean Energy, Cave said.