School district intends to replace 102 windows
The windows at Santa Barbara High School, located at 700 E. Anapamu St., are in need or repair of replacement.
The Santa Barbara Unified School District will be consulting with the city’s Historic Landmarks Commission for a proposed $1.3 million window replacement project at Santa Barbara High School.
The school board discussed the proposal during its Tuesday meeting, with board member Laura Capps requesting to pull the item from the board’s consent agenda to request consultation with the HLC.
The district consulted with the HLC in 2017 while it tested its plans for aluminum-clad windows at Santa Barbara High. The high school building is a historic landmark, but because it is owned by a public entity, the HLC can’t demand changes.
Nicole Hernandez, project planner and architectural historian for the city of Santa Barbara, was on site to see a test run of five windows. She and her colleagues did not think the new windows were in close enough resemblance to the original wood windows.
“Being a really important building and a school, we really think they should be the best match possible,” she told the News-Press.
While at the high school campus, located at 700 E. Anapamu St., she noticed that the windows on the front of the building could be restored. Others were rotten and would be hard to repair.
The current proposal only includes windows on the south-facing facade. The district did not choose to replace all the building’s windows because of budgetary constraints, Steve Vizzolini, director of facilities and modernization, told the News-Press.
Ms. Hernandez didn’t know the district had bid the project or intended to replace 102 windows soon. She said she was surprised when the district didn’t provide all the documents the HLC requested in 2017.
Four contractors submitted bids for the window replacement project, and the district determined Frank Schipper Construction was the best value.
The windows cost about $4,000 per each uninstalled. The remaining $863,685 covers project management, demolition, installation, repairs and painting.
Because the windows were painted with lead-based paint, hazardous material demolition is required at a cost of $119,020. If the windows are to be restored, the paint would need to be removed as well.
The district chose to replace the windows because it determined that repairing them would have a higher price tag. Measure I 2016 bond funds will be used to pay for the project.
In 2017, the district estimated that an aluminum-clad window replacement would cost $10,148 per window and a wooden replacement window installed was estimated at $11,795 per window. David Hetyonk was the director of facilities and operations at the time.
“Windsor windows were selected based on the experience of the architect having replaced similar windows at the historic Carpinteria Junior High School, and on the successful pilot project that replaced the windows in one classroom at Santa Barbara High,” Mr. Vizzolini said.
He agreed to consult the HLC again before the board gives its final vote.
The HLC designated Santa Barbara High School as a historic landmark in 2005. William Henry Weeks, who Ms. Hernandez described as “a very prominent architect at the time,” designed the building in 1924.
email: ahanshaw@newspress.com
