Ford Elementary School

Alten Construction worked alongside the West Contra Costa Unified School District and Sally Swanson Architects to build a new elementary school campus, which was featured as the Facility of the Month in School Construction News. In the beginning, there was an empty, dirt site. In the end, there was a multi-storied educational building complete with administration offices, a kitchen and multipurpose room, classrooms and a library; the developed site included new utilities, two parking lots, a garden area, several playgrounds with equipment, a steel shade structure, an exterior basketball court and sod soccer field, fencing and gates, concrete planters, bioretention areas, irrigation and landscaping, and a masonry garden shed and trash enclosure. As part of this project, Alten Construction installed a new elevator and handicap lift; a new, translucent skylight spanning the length of an entire building area; a new fire sprinkler system; a new mechanical system with a BACtalk computerized building management system; a new fire alarm system; a new lighting control system; a new security system with electrified hardware and cameras; and decorative finishes such as arched, metal roof canopies and custom bas-relief panels above several exterior doorways and ornamental, steel handrail at the interior staircases. This campus was certified as a CPHS project.