Virginia Beach City Public Schools, Thoroughgood Elementary School

MBP facilitated a formal value engineering workshop utilizing an independent team of architects and engineers to identify value-enhancement ideas on the design development documents. The value engineering study was conducted in accordance with the practices recommended by SAVE International. The new Thoroughgood Elementary School is a 94,478-gross-square-foot facility for a student population of 700. The facility will be located on a 12.5-acre site at the location of the existing Thoroughgood Elementary School. This building is a mixed one- and two-story structure housing kindergarten through fifth grade classrooms and support spaces. In addition to the classroom wings and circulation spaces, the building program will also include spaces for cultural arts, fitness + play, leadership, library, nourishment, special opportunities, support, toilets, and wellness. The site components include softball and multi-purpose fields; basketball courts; bus/faculty/staff/visitor parking areas; and amenities such as a courtyard, walking trail, playground, and outdoor classrooms.

The VE workshop identified 80 value improvement ideas during the creative phase of the study. After these ideas were evaluated based on subjective criteria for project improvement, 57 of these were determined to enhance the value of the project and were developed as formal proposals. The 57 proposals are estimated to have cost impacts with a total potential savings of approximately $8,015,000, or 27.7% of the project’s construction cost.