A massive fertilizer plant explosion and a succession of devastating tornadoes have recently damaged numerous residential, commercial, and public facilities in the Texas communities of West, Granbury, and Cleburne as well as the city of Moore, Oklahoma.  Entire neighborhoods including the local public schools have been severely affected, and in many cases totally destroyed. In every area, the issues associated with the rebuilding efforts will present many long term challenges.  Demolishing and clearing out the debris, determining where the reconstruction funds will come from, providing new design documents, permitting each new structure, and then completing the construction of new facilities will probably take from 3 to 5 years.  A major question then becomes, what do these cities and schools do in the interim?  (more…)

Organized as a charter school, Life School serves over 4,000 students at five locations around the Dallas, Texas area. When the school de­cided to expand their Oak Cliff area secondary school, they chose three 7,424 square foot eight-classroom modular buildings complete with connecting deck and ramp assem­blies. Purchased through the Texas Buyboard and built using traditional modular contruction, each facility includes a private office, restrooms, storage area, and individual class­rooms with a computer lab in the high school building. The buildings utilize nine wall-mounted HVAC units zoned for energy efficient heating and cooling, and include factory in­stalled 26-gauge R-panel metal sid­ing on the exterior, vinyl composition gypsum wall coverings, and durable high traffic carpet flooring. We went back out to visit the Oak Cliff campus and caught up with Shawn Thomas, Director of Operations for the Life School. Here’s what he had to say:

Ramtech has continued to build on its success in the public school sector by securing a new $1.9 million contract to provide four new modular cafeteria buildings to the Aldine Independent School District in Houston, Texas.  Totaling 41,216 square feet, two modular buildings will be installed at both Nimitz and MacArthur High Schools for use as interim facilities while the renovation of the existing cafeterias takes place.  Ramtech will begin the manufacturing phase of the modular construction project prior to the end of February, and will commence the site activities at the beginning of March. We expect to complete the project by April 12th, which will give Aldine ISD ample time to prepare the facilities to begin food service to their students by May 1st. (more…)