Spokane-based Lydig Construction Inc. says it has started work on a $34 million middle-school replacement project in Western Washington.

The new Lakota Middle School in the Federal Way Public Schools district will have 100,000 square feet of floor space including classrooms, music facilities, a kitchen, and a library in one building and a separate gymnasium, says Marty Orchard, a spokesman for Lydig.

Construction is expected to be completed by the fall of 2010, Orchard says.

The school district says the current school building, which was constructed in 1962, is difficult to monitor with its 27 entrances, and its design also makes it problematic to install infrastructure for high-tech educational applications.

Lakota Middle School is located in the city of Federal Way, about six miles northeast of downtown Tacoma, and serves 800 students in the sixth, seventh, and eighth grades. The main new facilities will be south of the current school building, and the gym will be just west of it, the district's Web site says. The current facility will be torn down.

The middle school is one of five schools in the district scheduled to be rebuilt through a $149 million construction bond package voters approved in 2007, the district says. The district operates 23 elementary schools, eight middle schools, and five high schools.

Bassetti Architects PS, of Seattle, designed the project.