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SAN BENITO — San Benito school district officials continue halting a $40 million-bond funded construction project as its new manager works to determine whether potential flaws could pose risk to two buildings’ foundations.
While architect Mike Alex, the new project manager, points to a survey finding some of the building’s supports may not be properly aligned with their foundations, Tony Vargas, an official with Davila Construction, said new information appears to indicate the foundations are solid.
On May 12, Vargas, the San Antonio-based contractor’s senior project manager, declined to publicly disclose his information during an interview.
“We’re still coordinating details and gathering information from all parties to determine what the issue is,” Vargas said. “We remain committed to resolving this issue as quickly as possible and getting back to work.”
The new information could call into question Alex’s report to school board members earlier this week.
Meanwhile, board member Orlando Lopez said he wants to “clarify” any questions.
“My goal is to make sure this contractor and these subcontractors remedy the situation to continue moving forward to make sure our kids enjoy what the community voted for,” he said during an interview, referring to the 2018 bond issue he helped push to launch one of the district’s biggest construction projects.
GEOPIERS’ ALIGNMENT STUDIED
Last month, district officials halted construction after Alex reported some geopiers, or deeply-anchored 2-foot-wide rock columns, were not aligned with the foundations’ targets.
During a meeting, Alex pointed to a Davila survey he said confirms findings of his survey, conducted by Edinburg-based Rio Delta Engineering, showing some geopiers were misaligned to “varying degrees.”
“Rio Delta, through their surveys, confirmed that in many cases geopiers are not aligned with the structural foundation and this poses significant construction issues and compromises the structural integrity of both buildings,” Alex, with McAllen-based ROFA Architects, told board members during a May 9 building committee meeting. “Based on this limited information that was provided by Rio Delta at the time, it was inconclusive as to the scope and breath of misalignment.”
Alex said he was trying to determine the number of geopiers that are misaligned with the foundations.
“We don’t know how many geopiers are going to have to be addressed and we’ll know that as we move forward,” he said.
SURVEY FINDINGS
As part of Alex’s presentation, Ivan Garcia, a civil surveyor with Rio Delta, told board members Davila’s survey matched his findings.
“As far as the survey is concerned, we found practically the same results,” Garcia said. “We found the geopiers were in a different location than where the intended building corner location was going to be. Most of the points, if not all the points that we got, landed almost at the center of those geopier locations that were staked out, so we can safely assume, or it’s safer to assume, the location of the other piers that were covered (beneath the buildings’ foundations). It’s an issue of misplacement of the buildings when the stake-outs were created and then performed on the field.”
Garcia told board members Davila’s survey confirmed the foundations’ control points were not in question.
“We got a better understanding of where the other geopiers are and at the same time we confirmed control points,” he said. “One of the things we wanted to make sure is that those control points that we found on site and that we used to confirm locations were the same ones used by the surveyor when they staked it out, and they landed right on. So there was no issue as far as control points.”
In reference to the geopiers’ outline and the building’ outline, Garcia said, “they’re all in the wrong location.”
In response to Garcia’s statement, Alex added, “in varying degrees. He’s giving an average, but to varying degrees they’re off.”
During discussion, Alex offered what he described as “possible remedies” based on his findings, ranging from the bolstering of piers to the addition of geopiers to “demolition and reconstruction of any or all foundations.”
BACKGROUND
During a late February inspection, construction officials found a geopier to be “slightly off” its designed target, Vargas said during an earlier interview, adding about 1,700 geopiers have been installed beneath each building’s foundation.
Last month, Alex told board members the geopiers are solidly installed.
Now, the project, which district officials halted about a month ago, stands about four months behind schedule, Alex said.
In 2018, the district’s past administration proposed a $40 million bond issue to fund construction of a $21.3 million performing arts theater, an $8.8 million aquatics center and a $5.7 million indoor practice field, which 54 percent of voters passed.
In October 2021, Davila Construction launched the project to build the performing arts theater and aquatics center.
