Newest Tri-Cities high school just got more expensive. Why it’s costing an extra $1.6M

Sageview High School construction will cost an extra $1.6 million as the school board recently approved the project’s 11th change order.

Richland-based Fowler General Construction’s contract will now cost the Pasco School District nearly $125 million. That’s an increase from the original $123.2 million contract.

The change amounts to a 1% increase.

“For a project of this size, typical change orders are estimated to come in up to 3.5% above the original estimate. We’re pleased to report that the project remains on budget,” district spokesperson explained in an email.

Pasco is building the Tri-Cities’ eighth comprehensive high school on 65 acres at 6091 Burns Road. The buildup hit a milestone last month as workers installed the final steel beam in the two-story, 300,000-square-foot building.

Sageview’s total cost is expected to be about $185 million. District taxpayers will pay about $140 million of that and Washington state expects to contribute $45 million.

Fall 2025 opening

Sageview High School will open to instruction in Fall 2025, less than a year from now, and will be the newest high school to open since Chiawana High School in 2009.

It will serve 2,000 students living north of Interstate 182 and in rural parts of Franklin County.

The school will play host to a full slate of academic programs, athletics, and extracurricular activities, and feature state-of-the-art learning spaces and a unique agriculture-focused CTE program.

Sageview’s building will include 82 classrooms, as well as administrative suites, an athletic wing, a library and a 650-seat indoor theater-auditorium.

The school’s opening will provide immediate relief for Chiawana and Pasco High School, two of the state’s largest high schools.

They’ve experienced overwhelming enrollment growth in recent years and their classrooms are bursting at the seams. More than 1,300 students between the two schools are served in portable buildings, most of them at Chiawana.

Voters passed a 21-year, $195.5 million capital bond measure in 2023 to build Sageview; a small career and college academy, Orion High School, in East Pasco; upgrades to athletic facilities at Pasco High School; improvements to Career Technical Education classes at Pasco and Chiawana; and future land purchases.

The district sold $221 million worth of bonds last year to cover the new capital projects.

In Washington state, bonds are for building schools and facilities while levies pay for learning and education programs.

Unlike levies, which require a simple majority of voters to pass, bond measures require a 60% “super majority” of voters in the district for approval. Local school districts share the burden of paying for the construction of new schools with the state, which provides matching dollars.

Pasco and South Whidbey School District were the only districts out of more than a dozen across Washington to pass school construction funding last year.

What the extra $1.6M is buying?

The Pasco School Board approved nearly $310,000 in additional construction work for the new Sageview High School at its most recent meeting.

Large capital projects like Sageview often go beyond the original contract for a variety of reasons. Rising material and labor costs, scope and design errors, additional work, project scale and complexity all play a role.

Construction of Sageview has gone smooth, administrators told the Herald back in spring, and there have been few hiccups so far.

The school board began approving Fowler’s change orders in October 2023.

Here are some of the most expensive line items include:

• A water main addition and reroute: $177,000.

• A cost change for sanitary sewer and storm water collection: $133,350.

• LED video display scoreboards for main gym and whiteboards: $131,000.

• Upgraded track surface: $125,000.

• Added grout layer and second sealer on polished slabs: $112,000.

• Extra hours amounting to 28 days for iron workers to get steel erection back on scheduled following a 2-week delay: $83,700

• Changes to acoustical metal deck clouds: $80,000.

• Addition of wall and roof hydrants: $76,000.

• 3D art redesign: $75,700

• East student parking lot revision for more parent drop off spots: $75,000.

• Civil and landscape revisions due to pump and utilities changes: $72,000.

Other smaller additions recently added include theater light fixture changes, gates and fences to athletic facilities, a wheelchair lift, artificial turf markings and volleyball re-striping for the auxiliary gym, additional carbon monoxide detectors and television installations. Change orders also include dozens of other revisions, additions and added worker hours to improve the school.

More change orders could come before the Pasco School Board at its Sept. 10 meeting.