Your Trusted Partner for School Bond Referendums
Building Your District’s Future Together
Building Your District’s Future Together
LAN has assisted districts in successfully passing over 50 referendums, totaling more than $800,000,000!
LAN Associates has been transforming the educational built environment with innovative architecture and engineering since 1965. We understand the critical role facilities play in shaping a student’s educational experience and a school district’s mission to provide best-in-class education. LAN has a long history of working with local communities on school bond referendums that fund educational spaces that complement and enhance our clients’ modern and forward-thinking curriculums.
School Bond Referendum funds can be used for a wide range of critical projects aimed at enhancing your school facilities. The money used to fund these projects is typically paid off through increased property taxes over a set number of years or is tax-neutral if there are capital funds or retiring debt. Bond referendums funds are not for use for items that come out of a district’s regular operating budget like staff salaries. However, securing dedicated funds for construction projects helps ensure your normal budget is not stressed by the need to fund facility improvements.
It is important to work with an architecture and engineering firm that not only understands funding projects through bond referendums but also all the other opportunities available to districts looking to secure funds for construction projects. LAN Associates has our finger on the pulse of the K-12 education market. When possible, we look for ways to help clients secure funding through grants and other national and state programs.
LAN begins the referendum process by thoroughly analyzing existing school infrastructure, and meeting with key stakeholders to learn about your district’s needs, wants, and educational plans. This allows us to identify top project priorities and plan for future needs. This collaborative process is key to developing a master plan that ensures a comprehensive vision for the future of your district that aligns with your community’s objectives.
LAN can coordinate visioning sessions with key community stakeholders, staff, teachers, and students to help them give a local voice to the design. Through these guided sessions, we can understand the vision and personality of the community while aligning our design approach with the goals of a district. We have witnessed a rise in collaboration and creativity using this process, as well as heightened positivity towards the referendum from the community.
Visioning sessions can start the process of introducing the public to the value of the projects being planned in your school bond referendum. From there, specialized marketing/public relations efforts can further help ensure your referendum is passed. This is done by educating the public on the project’s details while addressing any common concerns, questions, or misunderstandings within the community.
LAN uses its multi-discipline expertise to provide proper due diligence that anticipates and preemptively identifies regulatory and permitting issues in the initial planning phases to reduce unexpected delays as the project progresses.
Our goal is to ensure your project is set up for success on a realistic timetable. To that end, our team works in unison and has the ability to cross-check all aspects of design and construction with the relevant expert, all under one roof. This results in a more cost-effective process that is built on collaboration between a team that is sharing resources and has a single goal.
LAN’s work is produced with a unique efficiency that comes from decades of experience with in-house cross-discipline collaboration. From site selection and proper site due diligence to conceptual designs, construction documents, and construction administration, our multi-disciplinary firm has unparalleled experience with integrated design.
LAN’s core competency is educational architecture and engineering. School design work accounts for over 60% of our business, and our time is spent collaborating with district stakeholders to translate their vision into tangible design concepts. We understand how to design the unique spaces K-12 schools require, and our team ensures that every element of your referendum supports your educational objectives while adhering to budgetary limitations. LAN has an over 50-year history of creating award-winning educational spaces.
LAN’s experience and full-service capabilities put our team in a unique position to accurately assist in creating realistic budgets that align with your school’s financials. We can ensure transparency and accountability throughout the entire budgetary process. LAN also has experience working with independent construction managers and/or cost-estimating firms to provide added advice related to project prioritization, phasing, and cost verification to accompany LAN’s expertise in construction cost estimating. Our experience providing full-service solutions that include construction administration gives us a clear understanding of the importance of economic conditions and how they impact budgets on construction, materials, labor, etc. All of this plays a major role from our initial planning stage through groundbreaking and construction.
LAN can provide thorough construction administration services once a referendum passes and designs are finalized. We work to ensure that the final product lines up with the plans your district and LAN’s design team collaborated on, and that your projects are completed on time, within budget, and to the highest standards of quality.
Construction administration progress at the new Ross Street Elementary School in Woodbridge Township, New Jersey
LAN Associates not only delivered, they went above and beyond to ensure we, the client, were informed and satisfied. From day one they took ownership of every detail on the project. Everyone from the project manager, to the design team and construction administrator was accessible and very communicative.
The Mamaroneck Union Free School District has had a relationship with LAN Associates dating back to 1992. Over the years, LAN Associates has worked on over $110 million worth of projects for the district, a recent one being a $9.3 million project that was completed on time and under budget.
LAN Associates has been a trusted source for architectural and engineering services related to school bond referendums for over 50 years. Our team understands the planning, attention to detail, and skill set needed to map out a successful referendum and educate the community in a way that motivates voters. We have the experience, talent, and deep bench of professionals needed to make your referendum a success.
LAN Associates is a full-service engineering, planning, architecture, and surveying firm founded in 1965. We take pride in our ability to address the distinct needs of our large and varying client base.
