By LESTER CHANG
The Cupertino Union School District Board of Education recently approved a $3.2 million contract with BFGC Architects to redesign four junior high schools that will undergo major renovations over the next four years.
BFGC will redesign Cupertino, Warren F. Hyde, John F. Kennedy and Joaquin Miller junior high schools, according to a report submitted to the board at its meeting on Jan. 9.
The company, with headquarters in Bakersfield, will spend the next year planning designs for Cupertino Junior High in Sunnyvale, said Jerd Ferraiuolo, director of facility modernization for the school district.
Future plans will be drafted next for Kennedy, Hyde and Miller, respectively, he said.
The school district selected the company from 19 companies--primarily in California--that had supplied proposals to redesign the schools, Ferraiuolo said.
Through negotiations, the school district wrangled additional services from the company, including civil engineering and landscaping plans, Ferraiuolo said.
"We did all right. The $3.2 million is 9.7 percent of the construction budget [about $33 million for the four junior high schools]," he said. "A state-funded contract would come out to 10.1 percent. We were very pleased."
The $3.2 million and the $33 million in construction funds are part of a $71 million bond measure approved last June to refurbish the junior high schools and three elementary schools, including West Valley Elementary in Sunnyvale. The district is currently negotiating a contract with an architectural firm to plan the redesign of the elementary schools.
The junior high buildings, which are more than 40 years old, need to be repainted and rewired. Heating and air-conditioning systems need to be replaced, science laboratories must be renovated and modernized, and the libraries need to be expanded, Ferraiuolo said.
The elementary school buildings need plumbing replaced, libraries to be re-designed, energy-efficient light and carpeting installed, and some rooms enlarged, he said.
The reconstruction of the three elementary schools is projected to cost $8.4 million. It will take less money to renovate these schools because the campuses are smaller than the junior high campuses, Ferraiuolo said.
Some $27 million--the balance of the $71 million--will be used to pay for consultants, the services of a state inspector to monitor the work and administrative costs, among other things, he said.
This article appeared in the Sunnyvale Sun, January 17, 1996
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