Monday farewell party slated for Peter G. Schmidt school building

The Tumwater School District will host a community farewell party Monday for the 59-year-old Peter G. Schmidt Elementary School building. It will be torn down this summer and replaced with a new school building that opens this fall on the same campus.

The drop-in event will be from 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. Monday in the school cafeteria at 225 Dennis St. SE, Tumwater. It will include opening remarks, memorabilia, time for people to share their memories about the school, and tours of the building.

The 60,000-square-foot building is the first major project funded by a $136 million bond measure voters approved in February 2014. The bond also will fund replacement of Littlerock Elementary School, renovations at East Olympia and Tumwater Hill elementary schools, and expansions of Tumwater and Bush middle schools, among other projects.

The new Peter G. Schmidt school, which was designed by TCF Architecture and is being built by Forma Construction, was budgeted to cost about $24.9 million. Nearly $3.9 million of that will be paid for through a state grant that rewards districts for incorporating energy efficiency and sustainability into their school designs.

The two-story school will connect to Peter G. Schmidt’s existing gymnasium, which was built in 2005. As part of the project, a building that houses preschool programs — which was built in 1975 but remodeled in 2005 — also is undergoing some modernization.

For more information on the farewell party, call Kim Howard at 360-709-7003 or go to www.tumwater.k12.wa.us.

This story was originally published May 12, 2016 at 2:08 PM with the headline "Monday farewell party slated for Peter G. Schmidt school building."