At San Tan Charter School, kicking off the semester one week before classes start with football and volleyball on San Tan Fall Sports Night is tradition. This year, Willmeng employees made the event possible for the students and their families.
Willmeng started ground-up construction on a 13,980-square-foot classroom building on April 29, 2016. In addition to the building, the design/build project included “digging up the existing football field to put in large underground water retention pipes and other utilities, creating a new football field and installing new athletic courts,” said Ken Carter, Senior Project Manager at Willmeng. Delays in development meant that the anticipated project completion date would be extended to Sept. 15 – passed sports night (originally planned for Aug. 2) and past the start of classes on Aug. 9.
Sports night at the school is a highly anticipated community event and the Willmeng team knew they had to put in their resources to hastily the complete field for the team and the students.
“Our team worked a lot of overtime and weekends,” said project superintendent, Andy Hindson. “We scraped mud caused by monsoon rains and brought in sod to turn the construction scene into a playable field.”
There were a whopping 300 in attendance! Willmeng provided grills to help the school serve over 250 hotdogs, chips and drinks.
“The event could only have been the success it was because of your dedication,” said Dr. Kristofer Sippel, Principal of San Tan Charter School, in an email to Willmeng.
Although the building was still under construction and without permanent electrical power, classes commenced as planned on Aug. 9 because Willmeng obtained a temporary certificate of occupancy with backing from the fire marshall and the Town of Gilbert. Willmeng finished four classrooms, segregated them from the construction site and temporarily powered them on a diesel generator. If the classrooms had not been finished on time, Principal Sippel was prepared to hold classes in the gym, which would hinder the school’s robust gym activities.
After months of hard work, the Willmeng team wrapped up the school’s construction!
