When Renton High School is torn down and replaced in the next four years, it won’t be a win for the environment. Yes, its replacement will have a “highly-efficient HVAC ” system and meet the “requirements of Washington Energy Code and Clean Building Act.” But constructing an all-new school instead of updating/expanding the existing one has a nearly insurmountable environmental cost. Millions of pounds of materials will be crushed and trucked to landfills, while millions of pounds of new materials will need to be mined, manufactured, and transported to replace them. It may take 80 years before an improved HVAC system overcomes this environmental impact, if it ever does.
In 2007 Carl Elefante, former president of the American Institute of Architects, summarized the new-vs-remodel dilema by pointing out that “the greenest building is the one that is already built.”
This link includes an excellent interview with Mr. Elefante, where he elaborates on this point. The argument that we should preserve buildings when possible extends far beyond Renton High School. We should be practicing it everywhere.
The Renton High replacement also involves tearing down 40 homes and businesses, which along with causing misery through unwanted takings and displacements, will also have to be replaced. And the new high school project will cut down hundreds of trees, more than the Renton code would typically allow for a site of this size. No amount of insulation in the new school will overcome the environmental cost of these impacts.
I voted along with the majority for the bond issue to build a new Renton High School, because I believed the district’s voter materials that said that the existing high school would be preserved and repurposed. The district’s voter information also made no mention of taking and destroying 40 homes and businesses.
Our Renton students deserve the very best high schools we can give them, but no one should be arguing that this particular plan for Renton High was the most environmentally friendly one.
You’re getting what you voted for. Lots of taxes being spent poorly.
It’s been said that “voters get what they deserve” and maybe that is happening here. But the way the district has chosen to spend the money is not what I voted for, even though the District says it is.
They’ve done little of the 180-million-dollar system-wide safety and seismic upgrades that the bond issue was supposed to fund, and instead focussed on eminent-domain takings of homes and businesses near Renton High School. They had told voters that a new 40 acre site would be acquired for the new high school, and Renton High would be repurposed. Now they are tearing the high school down, even though the voter information said they wouldn’t. It would have been perfect as a replacement for Dimmitt Middle School since we’ve put about fifty million dollars into updating it in the past 20 years, including $11.5 million just two years ago. No doubt the District will be asking us for another $400 million to replace Dimmitt in the coming years.
The District has worked hard to confuse voters about what they voted for, by retroactively changing webpages describing the bond issue to match up with their new plans. I’ve covered the disparities using the “wayback machine” (internet history records) here.. The pages below were published before the bond issue was put to voters, and imply the District had a good opportunity to get land for a good price.
It’s weird: All our politicians have to smile and wave with the same “RSD is WORLD CLASS,” or they’ll get crucified. We all know that it’s bull pucky, but nobody can say it. Louy scores, weird spending, ultra violence. The Mad Max of washington school systems.
Now add pedophilia as a service that the Renton School District provides. For free!
https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/renton-paraeducator-accused-groping-inappropriately-messaging-former-student/JWYYLRJV3FARNKWQL5GHXPXT7I/
Carl Elefante’s framing is one that the demolition industry thinks about more than people realize. Here in Little Rock we work on both ends of this equation and the embodied carbon argument for preserving existing structures is becoming impossible to ignore, though sometimes demolition truly is the right call when renovation costs, structural integrity, or community needs make a new build the only viable path forward.