District design team presents three campus layouts, sizes and schedule options for San Antonio site

Design-team members and district staff presented three conceptual layouts for the San Antonio campus and discussed capacity, construction approach, joint‑use arrangements with the City of Mountain View, cost drivers and a target construction schedule.

The plans compared a predominantly prefabricated model using the FOLIA system and larger custom buildings. The design-build team said the three concepts vary mainly by classroom count, special‑use rooms and how many custom (site‑built) buildings would be required; capacities ranged from about 514 to 642 students across the options. No formal decision on which concept to build was made at the study session.

Amber Emery of Block Construction described the FOLIA product to the board: "It's a pre engineered classroom building with a 2 story and a 1 story," and said the system includes DSA (Division of the State Architect) preapproval intended to accelerate permitting. The team said a prefabricated folio can reduce on-site construction time and waste, while custom buildings take longer to design and cost more per square foot. The architects identified three phasing packages for construction: (1) demolition and site utilities, (2) the prefabricated folio classroom packages, and (3) the custom buildings (library/admin/MPR/gym), with the custom buildings driving the longest approval and build durations.

The three options shown to the board were summarized by the presenters as follows: Concept 1 — 26 classrooms, four larger STEAM/flex labs, two special‑education rooms and an estimated capacity of about 526 students; Concept 2 — the largest, with 30 classrooms and a capacity of about 642 students, three custom buildings and four flex labs; Concept 3 — the smallest, with 24 classrooms, two flex labs and a capacity near 514 students. The team said standard classrooms in the folio footprint are about 960 square feet; oversized or flex/STEAM rooms run roughly 1,200–1,300 square feet. The Option‑1 library was shown at roughly 2,700 square feet.

Cost and schedule questions dominated board discussion. The design team gave a planning‑level construction cost figure on the order of roughly $1,000 per square foot as a baseline for hard construction cost, and board members and staff discussed downstream project costs (architect/engineer fees, testing, furniture/fixtures/equipment and contingencies) that the team said commonly add a significant percentage to the construction total. A board member cited a planner's rough estimate that two concepts differed by about $3 million in total project cost, and the presenter said the team would produce more detailed cost estimates as part of the next phase.

Speakers pressed the team on site issues that affect program and operation: security/perimeter control (two‑tiered fencing to allow community access to the gym and MPR after hours while securing the learning areas during the school day), fire‑lane and emergency access requirements set by the local fire authority, and joint‑use programming and parking under negotiation with the City of Mountain View and a private property manager (Federal Realty). The presenters said the gym and fields have largely been coordinated with Mountain View as part of a joint‑use arrangement and that a small field restroom/maintenance building is included to support after‑hours use.

Board members also raised operational questions that must be resolved in later programming: whether TK/K classrooms should be one‑story units near drop‑off, whether two‑story folios could instead house lower grades on the ground floor, how flex rooms would be used (art/music/robotics/science) and code constraints that can restrict use of second‑floor spaces by TK–2 students. The team noted that some code provisions limit mixing very young students and older students on the same second‑floor egress paths, which affects where certain programs can be placed.

On schedule the team said the current program aims to start site work next spring and to complete construction in a way that would permit opening in August 2028 if design and approvals stay on the proposed timeline; the presenters warned that slippage in design or approvals could push occupancy into late 2028 or the following school year. The team recommended moving quickly to finalize a concept so the design and DSA reviews (for custom buildings) can proceed without losing schedule float.

No final vote or formal selection of a preferred concept occurred during the study session. Staff and the design team said they would return with refined options, more detailed cost estimates and draft schedules, and planned additional stakeholder engagement and user‑group programming to lock in room sizes and operational requirements.

Ending: The session closed with the design team agreeing to iterate on the three options based on board feedback — with a follow‑up presentation planned to reflect cost refinements, alternate configurations suggested by board members (for example, moving the multipurpose room closer to the gym to improve campus sight lines), and a more detailed phasing and permitting schedule. Further decisions were deferred pending the next presentation and updated estimates.