Costing a Theater Rebuild

Submitted by Hari Titan on

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The renovation option is budgeted at $14.5 million, with $13.5 million of that to be covered by a bond that voters are being asked to approve (Measure H).

The District estimated a tear-down and rebuild of the Alan Harvey Theater would cost between $25 million and $30 million.

Famous Piedmont architect John Malick found this new construction estimate to be extremely high and reached out me and others.

John thought a new construction would cost less than the extensive renovation the District is seeking. John provided 3 comparable public high school theaters in the Bay Area to support his position and explained how sometimes major renovations can cost more than a rebuild.

Clearly if John's information is correct, why would anyone want to spend $14.5 million to try to salvage the existing building?

Alicia knew me from my recent campaign and asked me to fact check John's position against the District cost estimate (above).

I spoke to John and a number of other architects from WLC, DLM, HMC and HY.

John went further to state that not only could we get a new theater for that price but we could get a state-of-the-art theater for the price of this proposed renovation.

This position was confirmed by WLC's experience designing and building state-of-the-art high school theaters / PACs.

Here are my observations about the District estimate for a tear-down and rebuild of AHT:

  1. District materials (http://www.piedmont.k12.ca.us/news/alan-harvey-theater) show the new Alan Harvey Theater to be 17,424 square feet (SF).
  2. The same webpage presents cost estimates for theater renovations with respect to price per SF of comparable projects in the Bay Area: Hillsdale HS Theater ($669/SF), San Mateo HS Theater ($547/SF) and St Francis HS Theater ($546/SF).
  3. However for estimating the cost for constructing a new theater, the same District webpage presents price estimates without division by SF:

    Would it be more cost-effective to tear down AHT and build a new theater?

    The cost of tearing down the existing facility and building a new theater is estimated to be between $25 million and $30 million , based on comparable school theaters that have been built in recent years in El Cerrito, Castro Valley, San Ramon and San Leandro.

    [emphasis added]

  4. Although the District page did not divide by the SF for the AHT (17,424), we can just as easily do that to transform the total cost range to a price/SF range. This division results in the District estimates the cost of building a new AHT theater is between $1435/SF and $1722/SF. This cost is unbelievably high.
  5. However before we really do this division we should examine the "comparable school theaters" listed more closely. The first on this list is El Cerrito which is a 56,061 SF facility that was built for $28 million. A 56,061 SF facility is hardly comparable to the 17,424 SF AHT.
  6. The simplest way to "fix" the mistake of using El Cerrito's total price as a comp is to divide it by its SF and use the resulting $499/SF as a comparable.
  7. A problem with this approach is that the El Cerrito building has many more non-theater rooms than AHT will have. The cost/SF for non-theater rooms is much less than the cost/SF for a theater. This same problem is described on the District webpage as the problem of "comparing the cost of remodeling a kitchen with the cost of adding a bedroom."
  8. Interestingly Pinole High School loved the El Cerrito theater so much that they decided to build an exact replica housed in a much smaller 16,846 SF building. The Pinole HS Theater is being built for $10 million ($594/SF) and is an excellent comp for the AHT.
  9. The District also made a mistake with respect to the cost of demolishing and constructing the San Leandro HS Theater. According to an email sent to me by the architect of record for that project, the cost for that theater building was $14,560,000 for a 27,931 SF building ($521/SF). Again this 27,931 SF facility is not comparable to a new AHT. Clearly the District did not use $14.56 million in its cost range and might have accidently included the cost of other school buildings constructed for the same high school as part of the same project. The Piedmont Post did an article to confirm this pricing: http://harititan.com/Renovation_v_new_construction.pdf
  10. I noticed that when talking about the St Francis HS Theater, the District website refers to the job as a "construction" not a renovation. I checked with St Francis HS and indeed their new theater is a brand new construction which came in at $546/SF. It appears this comp was miscategorized under the renovation section of the District website.
  11. I could not get this type of info for San Ramon HS or Castro Valley HS theaters. Some ex-mayors signed a statement that a new theater would "cost double or triple" what this renovation would cost. I inquired and did not find any other comps that could support that.
  12. I found many additional recently built HS theaters in or near the Bay Area. These are: Palo Alto HS Theater ($696/SF), St. Helena HS Theater ($694/SF), San Lorenzo HS Theater ($629/SF) and Arcata HS Theater ($512/SF), listed from most expensive down.
  13. Combined with the other new theater comps presented earlier, this suggests it costs somewhere between $446/SF and $696/SF to build a new theater. The average cost is $587/SF which is very close to the $594/SF for Pinole HS.
  14. If we use the recent average ($587/SF), we'll get an estimate of $10.2 million to build a new AHT. If we use the recent / historical maximum ($696/SF), we'll get an estimate of $12.1 million to build a new AHT. Using the average versus the maximum is almost analogous to using either Pinole or Palo Alto as comps. Which is more appropriate for Piedmont?
  15. The cost/SF range that I got is nowhere near the cost/SF suggested by the District (see point #4 above) which is clearly wrong on the El Cerrito and San Leandro comps.
  16. The historic maximum cost/SF for new theater construction is also lower than the AHT renovation price of $832/SF. Clearly new construction is not only possible but more prudent than the current renovation plan.
  17. Oddly the new construction price/SF range is similar to the renovation price/SF range described in point #2 above.
    • The demolition cost is between $12/SF and $17/SF and is not a major factor
    • New construction has the advantage of cheaper standardized materials and faster standardized construction sequence and methodology
    • Renovations require a higher design contingency (15% versus 5%) compared to new construction due to unknown code violations that may be discovered
    • Renovations also require a higher program contingency (e.g. 20%) to cover things like dry rot (e.g. discovered at Wildwood school)
    • New construction allows stacking floors (e.g. classrooms below theater) which has a lower footprint and saves on roofing expense
  18. A new construction with all new materials incl. a new foundation will last much longer.
  19. A new theater would optimize acoustics with hard surface exterior walls and likely increase the seating capacity (with a balcony).

My "free" generalized cost estimate for a new rebuild of AHT is at: http://harititan.com/new_construction.pdf

Do click the links on Page 3 to confirm the specs and costs.

You can also see images of these comps in this presentation: http://harititan.com/comps.pdf

Haven's Elementary was originally supposed to be a renovation, not tear-down and new construction. Later Webcor explained it would be cheaper to tear it down and then rebuild: http://www.construction-today.com/index.php/sections/institutional/567-w...

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