ornerstone General Contractors defied the odds and turned an impossibly challenging project into an all-around award-winning success. Through the Gruening Middle School Earthquake Repair project with the Anchorage School District, or ASD, Gruening Middle School went from condemned to reborn in an eleven-month construction timeline, representing the best kind of collaboration on an extremely dangerous and extraordinarily complex project in Alaska.

Ask any person in or near Anchorage where they were at 8:37 a.m. on Friday, November 30, 2018, and they will tell you. That’s when a massive 7.1-magnatude earthquake shook Southcentral Alaska, shaking that continued with more than 10,000 registered aftershocks in the months afterward.

More than 80 percent of ASD schools suffered some level of damage. Cornerstone wasted no time calling the district after the initial quake—not because of the need for more work but to help guarantee continued education of Municipality of Anchorage children within a safe environment. Cornerstone knows that the best way to recover from a tragic event is to return to normalcy as soon as possible.

Less than 24 hours after the major quake, Cornerstone crews were on site assessing the damage alongside ASD officials. The company was assigned eighteen schools to assess and completed them all in a few weeks.

Gruening Middle School was not on any of the ASD contractors’ list. This school was one of two that suffered the most amount of damage within the district and it was considered unsafe to return. Originally built in 1983 with corrective actions completed in 1984, Gruening was immediately red-tagged and condemned after the 2018 earthquake.

Because of this, Gruening received the bulk of school bond funds for repairs and seismic upgrades.

The focus of this recovery project was to repair damage to the building and upgrade the structure, architectural finishes, mechanical systems, and other systems to guard against another seismic event. In addition to earthquake damage repairs, Gruening contained notable architectural issues that needed addressing as part of this project, including roof leaks and failures, educational planning deficiencies, secure entry deficiencies, and exterior envelope deficiencies. This project also needed civil, landscape, mechanical, electrical, and hazardous materials deficiencies addressed.

Cornerstone maintains a strong safety culture. It’s proven not only by the awards on its walls but also the health of its employees and the relationships established with one another. There’s no doubt that the Gruening Middle School Earthquake Repair project was challenging because of nature of the damage from the earthquake and the aggressive schedule and craziness of 2020. Cornerstone remained ready and open-minded when changes occurred and adapted its safety plan to anything and everything presented.

Since the project had an accelerated schedule with an aggressive budget, it required triple the workforce on site. Cornerstone’s project management team worked with the safety department to divide the building into zones, with detailed scopes of work for each zone to protect workers from hazardous activities such as asbestos abatement because of the age of the facility. At its peak, more than 120 individuals were actively working onsite with different scopes of work.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought its own set of challenges; daily temperature checks became part of the safety program to ensure all workers were safe at the start of each shift. Cornerstone closely followed the recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control, or CDC, as well as state and local authorities and, of course, the requests of ASD. By requiring 100 percent mask use when onsite and implementing daily temperature checks in the beginning of the project, the company prevented transmission of the virus and avoided shutting down the project.

Earthquake repair projects are dangerous. They add a safety concern to any project because of the unknowns. Typically, contractors and designers know what to expect in a project because the as-builts are accurate in assisting understanding of conditions. The Gruening project brought on a considerable number of unknowns, which required opening every wall. Cornerstone worked with the structural engineer Reid Middleton Inc. to perform numerous site visits and generate safe, efficient solutions to what the crews uncovered behind the walls.

The architect and lead designers, MCG Explore Design, made weekly visits to assist with every changing condition. Matt Schmidt, superintendent of architectural build-back with Cornerstone, recalls the added level of teamwork during the demolition phase and beyond.

“We tackled these challenges by having a large Cornerstone office team work together and had frequent meetings to keep things on track,” says Schmidt. He explains that Cornerstone worked with ASD, the designers, subcontractors, and management team to constantly update the schedule and perform modifications where needed.

One of the strategies for providing exceptional client service was serving as ASD’s advocate and project expert. To meet ASD’s project goals, Cornerstone treated this project like a Construction Manager/General Contractor project rather than the traditional hard-dollar-bid project that it was. Cornerstone led several meetings on a weekly basis, including hosting Request for Information, or RFI, meetings in addition to the weekly owner’s meetings. This allowed the Cornerstone team to remain proactive; rather than send an RFI, wait for a response, and complete the instruction, Cornerstone management sent optimal solutions with every RFI and would work through each solution in real time with the client. In most cases, Cornerstone would walk through each option so ASD could understand the situation at a contractor level. This prompted cost efficient and safe solutions—and a satisfied client.

On Thursday, October 14, 2021—two months after the certificate of continued occupancy was issued—a public ribbon cutting ceremony was held at Gruening Middle School that included speeches from ASD Superintendent Dr. Deena Bishop, Governor Mike Dunleavy, and Gruening Principal Bobby Jefts. Current students cut the ribbon with Gruening staff, and a school tour was held for parents and past students. This event marked a significant milestone for the whole team. What people didn’t see is what had happened in those last two months.

Cornerstone and its subcontractors worked energetically to complete the majority of the school by the 2021/2022 academic year. The team turned over the school in time for teachers and faculty to return to Gruening two weeks before classes began. Due to COVID-related material delays, the gymnasium was completed two months later. A small group of the Gruening Cornerstone crew remained on site and kept in close communication with the school. This presence on site and awareness of construction developed trust among the students and teachers.

“Cornerstone has been a great company to work with in this project,” says Yuki Janson, project manager for ASD. “We set up goals at the beginning of the project and they worked hard to achieve the proposed goals together with their subcontractors and in close coordination with the design team.”