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Ground Breaking for San Diego's New Urban Discovery Academy
[January 27, 2015]

Ground Breaking for San Diego's New Urban Discovery Academy


KCM Group, a full-service construction management and consulting firm, announced today that construction is underway on the Urban Discovery Academy. The K-8 public charter school will be permanently located at Silo-Makers Quarter in the heart of San Diego's East Village neighborhood.

Urban Discovery Academy (Photo: Business Wire)

Urban Discovery Academy (Photo: Business Wire)

"Urban Discovery Academy is fortunate to reach an important milestone in the construction process," said MaeLin Levine, Urban Discovery Academy Board President. "This project has faced some unique challenges, and KCM Group's expertise has been crucial to getting us to the school's construction phase."

For the past six years, Urban Discovery Academy (UDA) has been operating out of rented space on Sixth Avenue, across from Balboa Park. KCM Group was selected to oversee the relocation and construction of the project. The new UDA will consist of a school facility with outdoor parking and playground areas to be constructed on 30,000-square-feet of property along the western side of 14th Street (between E Street and F Street). The project will continue nearly a century of educational use of the siteby incorporating and renovating an historic two-story, 20,000-square-foot College District building and integrating it with a new two-story, 16,000-square-foot learning space.



"Educational facilities are important assets for Downtown and East Village," said Councilman Todd Gloria. "Schools like the Urban Discovery Academy will help attract families to these neighborhoods, which contributes to the creation of vibrant and diverse communities."

Urban Discovery Academy, designed by AVRP Studios Architectural, is part of the charter school movement, which aims to bring innovative educational choices to local residents. Chartered through the San Diego Unified School District, UDA is the product of passionate parents and community leaders who believe a school embedded in the City's urban core will draw creatively on the strength of the neighborhood's financial, civic and creative arts institutions.


"We are very proud to be partnered with such a great educational institution and to guide the construction process of this revolutionary new school," said Gordon Kovtun, founder and principal of KCM Group. "Urban Discovery Academy will be an invaluable new element for the East Village's residential and commercial evolution."

The project is currently scheduled to be completed by July 2015.

About KCM Group

KCM Group is a full-service construction management and consulting firm founded in 2000 by Gordon Kovtun. KCM Group provides comprehensive construction management services for government, commercial, non-profit and residential clients, as well as specialized consulting services in the areas of environmental compliance, construction claims (avoidance + resolution), forensic analysis and litigation support. The KCM Group website is www.kcmgroup.net. Civil Engineering and planning services are offered through KCM Engineering, an associated company of KCM Group. The KCM Engineering website is www.kcmengineering.com.


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