McCarthy Building Companies Halfway Through Construction of Carlson Elementary

Feb. 2, 2012 - PRLog -- McCarthy Building Companies is building the Chandler Unified School District’s 30th elementary school, Carlson Elementary School, in southeast Chandler.

The $12.4 million K-6 school will have room for 950 students. The 80,000-square-foot building will include a gym/multipurpose room, media center, classrooms and office space. The new elementary school is being built between Chandler Heights and Riggs roads and Gilbert and Lindsay roads in the T.W. Lewis master-planned community, Valencia.  

The school will contain energy-saving features including an air-cooled central plant; an Energy Management System that allows HVAC and lighting to be controlled remotely via the Internet; sky lighting in hallways to eliminate use of lights; and ground and polished concrete floors in hallways and bathrooms, which is easier and less expensive to maintain.

The school is being named after longtime educators John and Carol Carlson, who have held various roles within the district since 1974. Carol has taught K-2nd grade and in the early childhood education program, and John is currently the athletic director for the district and plans to retire at the end of the year.

The school will offer both the Chandler Traditional Academies (CTA) education model as well as “classic” education, so parents will have a choice on the type of instruction their child will receive.

“We are working hard to establish a neighborhood school that delivers strong instruction aligned to the Arizona standards and offers a wide variety of extra-curricular opportunities for our students,” said Leo Schleuter, who will serve as principal of the new school next year. “Carlson Elementary will provide options for parents with respect to students' instructional needs and foster parent and community involvement through partnerships with all school stakeholders.”

The Chandler Unified School District used Qualified School Construction Bonds to fund the construction of Carlson Elementary School. These bonds, which include a federal interest cost subsidy, were issued as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. This federal program, which was designed to aid school districts and provide economic stimulus during the recession, enabled the District to save an estimated $7.25 million in interest cost over traditional bond financing. These interest cost savings accrue to District taxpayers over the life of the program.

The school will be completed in May 2012 in time for the new school year to start in July.

HDA Architects Inc. is the architect on the project and major subcontractors include Midstate Mechanical, Suntec Concrete Inc. and Hawkeye Electric.

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About McCarthy Building Companies:

McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. is the nation’s 10th largest domestic general contractor (Engineering News-Record, May 2011). The firm has been building in the education market for more than 50 years. Committed to the construction of high-performance buildings, the company has managed construction or built hundreds of schools in virtually every K–12 school district in Arizona as well as 200 higher-education projects on more than 50 college campuses. The McCarthy Southwest Division is based in Tempe, Ariz. McCarthy also has offices in Newport Beach, San Diego, Sacramento and San Francisco, Calif.; Las Vegas; Albuquerque; Dallas and Houston; St. Louis and Atlanta. McCarthy is 100 percent employee-owned. More information about the company is available at www.mccarthy.com.