Bellevue School Board moves to new meeting space

January 23, 2009 7:01 pm
The Bellevue School Board holds its first meeting in a new facility Tuesday
The Bellevue School Board holds its first meeting in a new facility Tuesday

The Bellevue school board has new digs, thanks to a $10 million renovation at the school district’s support campus.

All future meetings for the board will take place at the six-building Wilburton Instructional Service Center (WISC), located 12111 N.E. First St. near the Bellevue Botanical Gardens and across the street from the district superintendent’s office.

The district has constructed an 8,500-square-foot facility there, replacing an old elementary-school building that was roughly half its size.

The new structure includes training and conference spaces, as well as revamped work areas for several technology-related departments housed at the WISC.

The district previously used the former school’s gymnasiums for training sessions, which restricted the intended use of those facilities.

The new board room can hold 208 people.

“Not a lot of people come to the school board meetings, but when there’s a big issue, there tends to be more people than we could accommodate,” said Bellevue School District spokeswoman Ann Oxrieder.

The school board’s new meeting room provides individual monitors for each board member and features four wall-mounted flat-screen televisions. It also doubles as a conference space.

The WISC campus features an energy-efficient temperature-control system that recovers and redistributes waste heat from IT servers.

Renovations have taken place at five other buildings on the grounds.

Bellevue School District IT Capital Construction Manager Kyle McLeod says the projects have made the campus more functional.

Work on the WISC project began in May 2007.

Funding for the renovation came from a $28 million capital levy that voters approved in 2002 and a $55 million capital levy endorsed in 2006.

Voters in March 2008 authorized the sale of $545 million in bonds for further capital improvements in the district.

The school board in its first meeting at the WISC asked staff to consult financial advisors about the likeliness of selling those bonds in light of current economic circumstances.

Some districts are pulling back on bond-based capital improvements because of market instability.

“We have a high credit rating, which is good for the buyer,” said Bellevue School District Facilities Director Jack McLeod.

Still, many of the primary investors, who include the financial industry’s biggest players, are those experiencing hardship, McLeod said.

Joshua Adam Hicks can be reached at jhicks@bellevuereporter.com or 425.453.4290.