T.W. Clark Construction LLC, of Spokane, has won a $7.6 million contract to remodel and expand an elementary school in Othello, Wash., says the Othello School District.

Mike Currier, the district's project manager, says he expects work on the project will start shortly, and it will be completed in the spring of 2012.

The bulk of the construction will involve a modernization of the 47,000-square-foot Hiawatha Elementary School building, but the project also will include construction of a 5,000-square-foot classroom addition, Currier says. The modernization work will include constructing new ceilings and some exterior walls and installing new lighting, heating, and cooling systems, he says.

When the project is completed, the school will be able to house more than 600 students, up from its current capacity of 450 students, Currier says.

The school, which is in the Othello farming community, about 110 miles southwest of Spokane, was built in 1954 and has been expanded three times since then, he says.

Architects West Inc., of Coeur d'Alene, designed the project. The firm also designed a $7.1 million modernization and addition at the district's Scootney Springs Elementary School, which is just over a mile south of the Hiawatha school. Chervenell Construction Co., of Kennewick, Wash., is the contractor on the Scootney project, and will be doing the work at the same time as T.W. Clark is working on the Hiawatha project, he says.

Both projects are funded through a bond levy approved in 2006, Currier says.