Desert Tech installs 20-ton sections as part of addition

from Today's News-Herald, Lake Havasu, AZ
July 19, 2004

The really big details are falling into place at Desert Technology High School.

That includes the nine modular sections weighing 20 tons each that a crane positioned on Saturday. The seamlessly joined units will provide a 6,700-square-feet technology center next to the current building at 3155 Maricopa Ave.

Phoenix-based Modular Technology, an accelerated commercial construction company, had the pre-fabricated units ready in less than two months, compared to up to eight months for a normal from-the-ground project.

A 15-member crew worked Saturday from 5 a.m. to 3 p.m. to get the units in place. "We started early because of the heat," Field Superintendent Lou Valasek said. "Havasu is hotter than Phoenix, that's for sure."

Only about a third of the work on the units will be left to do in the coming weeks, such as the electricity, plumbing, fire system and dry walling. The units are welded to a cement slab that was poured Wednesday. The units -- each measuring 13 feet tall, 13 feet wide and 60 feet long -- will house seven or eight classrooms. Seven sections are in front with two in the back.

A 30-foot wall, which will be added mid-week, will border the flat, rolled roof. Stucco work will begin in about 10 days.

A $3.8 million bond is financing the expansion that will more than double Desert Tech's space.

Desert Tech, which had an enrollment last year of 237 students in grades nine through 12, will have 20,000 square feet of space to use this school year, compared to the 8,000 square feet it had last year at a leased building on Sweetwater Avenue and the Maricopa Avenue site.

Desert Tech will also add a 3,000-square-feet art studio to the permanent building. Portable buildings now located next to the permanent structure will remain on campus, housing a science lab, restroom, offices and a dozen classrooms. One work bay at the back of the permanent building will be turned into a multi-purpose auditorium that can also be used for a classroom.

Desert Tech is a public charter school that will repay the 20-year bond with a portion of the per-pupil state equalization funds the state supplies. Charter schools are publicly funded, but cannot ask voters for overrides.

A five-member appointed board governs Desert Tech. With enrollment at about 10 percent that of Lake Havasu High School, Desert Tech primarily uses individualized, self-paced computer instructions and testing, but also offers standard classroom instruction and hand-on activities.

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