Two classrooms to go, please

ABHI RAGHUNATHAN. St. Petersburg Times. St. Petersburg, Fla.: Oct 15, 2005. pg. 1
Copyright Times Publishing Co. Oct 15, 2005

For counties like Hernando that have quickly growing student enrollments but not much in the way of cash, it may represent the future of school construction: a concrete portable classroom.

On Friday afternoon, a handful of school district officials looked on with smiles as a crane lifted one of the classrooms from the back of a truck and lowered it onto the ground at the Star Education Center, a place that serves mostly students who struggled in regular schools.

Then, a handful of workers went inside the concrete portable and applied the finishing touches - some cleanup, mild repair and maintenance. In just a few hours, the classroom was ready for use.

Each concrete unit holds two classrooms. The portables are 24 by 40 feet, have high ceilings and can withstand Category 5 hurricane winds, the manufacturer said. It took West Palm Beach-based company Royal Concrete Concepts 21 days to build each concrete unit. And it took one day for the company to ship two of the concrete units to Hernando County.

The cost for the two concrete portables: $141,925. That's about $74 per square foot. Regular school classrooms usually cost about $160 per square foot. Each concrete portable costs about $30,000 more than a regular wooden portable of the same size, though it lasts much longer.

Jeff Wisinski, who handles business development for the company, said 13 counties in Florida have agreed to purchase the concrete portables. He said the concrete classrooms are cheaper than regular bricks and mortar classrooms because the company can build them to order at its plant in West Palm Beach.

"We can control the working environment," Wisinski said.

John Albert, the company's director of sales and marketing, said Royal Concrete had produced 480,000 square feet of orders this summer for Florida school districts. He said he expects the demand to grow.

Citrus County School Board member Bill Murray came down to check out the concrete portables, along with a delegation of Citrus schools staffers. Murray said he was interested in obtaining concrete portable classrooms for Citrus.

"We liked everything we saw," Murray said. "We couldn't see any negatives."

Hernando officials also said they were pleased. School Board member Sandra Nicholson said looking at the finished concrete classrooms inspired her to push for the construction of a school made entirely the units. "I've been pushing hard for it," Nicholson said. "I'm going to push even harder now."