Renton High School is already $126 million over voter-approved budget, before inflation, rezones, lawsuits, and tariffs

Renton voters approved a new Renton High School at a new location, with this concept drawing illustrating the school potentially at the former headquarters of Wizards of the Coast on Lind Ave. Some of the office buildings are repurposed in this rendering. This was estimated to cost $441 Million. The School Board is instead implementing a rejected (not voter-approved) concept of a new school at the current high school site, for a cost of $568 million plus rapidly escalating land acquisition and other costs.

Following the Uvalde Texas School Shooting in May 2022, Renton School District prepared a School Bond Proposition to pay for prudent safety and security upgrades, to protect our children.  $182 million would be spent district-wide on entry point access controls, security systems, and video cameras, along with earthquake improvements and overdue heating and ventilating system replacements.  The District also felt it was time to make a major upgrade to Renton High School, and they proposed relocating it as the cost-effective option that also preserved the historic Renton High buildings for other purposes. 64% of Renton voters ultimately approved this measure, including me and my extended family.

A presentation that Renton School District published in June, before the bond election in November 2022, is easy to understand.

The concept art included in the presentation illustrated a modern new high school on commercial property on Lind Avenue, just across I-405 from the School District headquarters, where gamemaker “Wizards of the Coast” had been located before they moved to Renton’s Southport.  It made sense. With office prices dropping, the former “Wizards” property was tax assessed for about $12 Million, and there were other nearby parcels that were either vacant or held older offices that might be for sale for the right price.

The  $676 Million Bond would be used as follows:

The $441 Million dollar Renton High School Replacement cost came from a trade study of two alternatives, as shown below:

Option 1, rejected: rebuilding Renton High is $568 Million

A rebuild on the current site was considered risky due to airport and archeological issues, and was estimated to cost a total of $568 Million, a number which did not include cost escalation, overhead, or contingencies per the bottom line of the above chart.

Option 2, Selected: Build School at new location for $441 Million

So the School Board selected Option 2, a new location, and put it to the voters with the $441 Million for Renton High, along with improvements to other schools:

Details of bond issue in Renton School’s site during election

And then the School Board Members changed their minds.  And now, the district is planning to do the rejected Option 1 for Renton High, which they had previously shown would cost a minimum of $568 Million (instead of $441 Million).

$568 M (Renton High School) + $181 M (Safety, Security, Seismic, HVAC) + $53 M overhead/contingingency = $802 Million,  $126 Million OVER budget before construction has even begun.

Even worse, their budget only allowed for $40 Million in property acquisition for this rejected option, which was a gross underestimate.  They are trying to purchase 32 single family homes and 8 business properties, and they will need to spend $10 Million on just the two most expensive business properties.  This leaves just $30 Million for six business properties, and 32 single family residences which is proving to be not nearly enough.

Compounding the issue is a city-wide rezone, which is driving up the cost of the single family properties by making them all eligible for higher density multi-family use.  For instance, one of the targeted single family properties is nearly a half acre, and might be eligible to host 18 apartment units under the new zoning.

The rezoning has added so much confusion that many of the property-takings could be headed to trial, which will push the costs even higher.

And now we’re seeing tariffs as high as 25% on lumber and steel from Canada which will further add to the costs of new construction.

So the new high school could easily be $150 million over budget before it has even broken ground.

If the District is somehow tempted to take the overrun money out of the District-wide Safety, Security, Seismic and HVAC improvements, the public must give a firm “NO” to losing these promised improvements.  These changes, which were the basis for the title of the ballot measure, are necessary for the safety and health of all children in the district.  And taking the money from teachers’ pay or other additional cost-cutting in the classroom is also not acceptable, especially in light of the district’s struggling scores in basic subjects like math and english.

At this point, the Renton School Board needs to go back to the drawing board prior to breaking ground, and develop a plan to pay for all these improvements.  And this time around, they should be sure all discussion occur in open public meetings, and Renton voters get an accurate story regarding how money will be spent.

In other words, as my grade school teachers liked to say, SHOW YOUR WORK!