New Heights Elementary School in St. Petersburg, Fla., was designed to bring education to a new level and provide a gathering place for the community.

The image of an eagle soars above the entrance of New Heights Elementary School in St. Petersburg, Fla. It symbolizes the community's hope that this new building will lift education to a new level for its students.

New Heights replaces Tyrone Elementary School, which was built in 1958 and had reached maximum capacity. Rather than spend money on temporary solutions such as portable classrooms, the county invested in a very different kind of school.

Buildings on the New Heights campus are grouped around a series of courtyards, butterfly gardens, and outdoor classrooms to create an open learning environment. Bands of colored split face concrete block with matching mortar enhance the warm and welcoming atmosphere.

The school's design has already raised the bar for educational institutions in Pinellas County. In 2009, it received the Association of General Contractors of Greater Florida's Horizon Award for Best New Construction between $15 million and $30 million.

To make the masonry vision a reality, the project's Tampa-based general contractor, The Beck Group, chose the experienced masons of Advanced Masonry Systems of Sarasota, Fla. The school's curving walls, exact coordination of building materials, and alternating colors and sizes of split face block were challenging but familiar territory for Advanced Masonry.

Schools are a specialty for the family-owned contractor, accounting for up to 80% of the masons' work. The Advanced Masonry team has worked on about 80 schools over the past decade, including new construction and renovations.

“We specialize in jobs with a lot of masonry work that not just anybody could do,” says Ron Karp, Advanced Masonry's vice president. “We make a point of hiring skilled tradesmen. Some of our journeymen have been in the trade for 25 years.”

In the difficult economy, the contractor is careful not to underbid jobs while maintaining a fair rate of pay for masons. As a result, Advanced Masonry has become even more selective about the projects it pursues.

In the last couple of years, Karp has noticed more projects designed with tilt-up walls, a disturbing trend that has put even some of the most skilled craftsmen out of work. When masonry construction was more in demand, Karp believes the short supply of materials and skilled masons led architects to seek alternative products.

Sarasota-based Advanced Masonry Systems has taken on more large school projects since the commercial market has slowed. Vice president Ron Karp even had the opportunity to rebuild his own elementary school in Dunedin, Fla.

Since that has started to turn around, Karp expects a quick change back to masonry. “There are still new tilt-up jobs going on, but masonry outnumbers them two-to-one," he says. Architects like the aesthetics of brick and block, and they're comfortable building with it. Tilt-up is still relatively new, and hasn't withstood the test of time like masonry.”

More than 45 masons and their tenders spent 15 months building the 150,000-square-foot New Heights Elementary school. They used more than 200,000 gray block and 95,000 split face block to create an architectural masonry showcase. Most of these materials make up the school's exterior load-bearing walls, constructed with 8-inch CMUs and split face block veneer.

Long, curved radius walls on two of the buildings required a skilled hand. The masons constantly monitored the radiuses and joint thicknesses as they progressed.