Project Team
Owner: School District of Palm Beach County
Location: Boca Raton
Cost: $43.3 million
Contractor: Centex Rooney Construction Co., Plantation, Fla.
Architect: SchenkelShultz Architecture, West Palm Beach

Boca Raton Community High School is located on a 36-acre parcel in a residential section of Boca Raton. The project included seven major buildings totaling approximately 381,000 sq. ft., including an administrative building, three-story classroom building, two-story classroom building, gymnasium, auditorium, media center, cafeteria and central plant.

The replacement educational facility is designed to accommodate 2,500 students. It was delivered via a construction management-at-risk agreement at a cost of about $40 million. The construction schedule was roughly two-and-a-half years.

Because this was a phased-replacement project, Centex Rooney Construction scheduled the project to have three major phases. The phasing began with the demolition of nonessential existing buildings, leaving the classroom, administration and cafeteria buildings. Following that, the new essential buildings - classrooms, administration and cafeteria - were constructed in a "horse-shoe" fashion around the remaining structures.

The administration building and library were then relocated, the remainder of the new buildings were constructed, the old classroom structures demolished and the sitework completed.

In all, the project required phased demolition of 137,000 sq. ft. of existing structure while maintaining the existing campus operations.

Other challenges including tilting three-story concrete panels, weighing more than 100,000 lbs, adjacent to an existing structure and maintaining existing electrical and life-safety systems while installing new, replacement systems.

The new school features multiple general-assembly spaces, including an auditorium, cafeteria and gymnasium. The auditorium is equipped to stage a full theatrical production. Instructional areas house a full television production studio capable of broadcasting throughout the school, a school television network, a library and other items. All classrooms have data ports to each student station.