Facelift at R. Roger Rowe completed

RANCHO SANTA FE — C.W. Driver builders has completed construction of the $33 million R. Roger Rowe Elementary and Middle School, a 76,000-square-foot school at 5927 La Granada.
Construction replaced the majority of the pre-existing campus. The additions, designed by San Marcos-based Trittipo Architecture & Planning, include six new buildings with connected sky bridges, large amounts of new landscape and hardscape and an outdoor learning center. Students moved into the new buildings in September.
“This has been a challenging and satisfying project for the C.W. Driver team,” said C.W. Driver Senior Project Manager David Christensen. “We’ve been working in an occupied school campus environment with extremely tight site logistics, and we’ve been able to do so while keeping the safety of the students and staff members as our utmost concern.”
The project consisted of C.W. Driver crews demolishing the majority of the existing R. Roger Rowe campus, providing interim housing of 38 classrooms and reconstructing the site to new elevations in order to provide infrastructure for the six new buildings. The buildings consist of a new kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, administration offices, science classroom and performing arts building.
C.W. Driver built the campus in three phases. The first involved the demolition of a portion of the campus to accommodate the 38 portable classrooms. Also included were support utilities access pathways, created in a manner so that school life would not be interrupted. Boundaries and travel paths also were created to separate school operations and construction.
The second phase required the demolition of what remained of the to-be-replaced campus buildings and the construction of the six new buildings, all within a very limited area surrounded on three sides by occupied campus life.
Phase three encompassed the removal of the 38 portable classrooms and the construction of the new parking lots (with 90 spaces) and play fields, plus the modernization of the existing classroom building and gymnasium.
“C.W. Driver has been a great firm to work with,” said Lindy Delaney, superintendent of the Rancho Santa Fe School District. “Throughout the life of this project they always looked out for our best interests.”