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Ex-Altoona administrators weigh in on new school project

Mirror file photo / A crowd gathers on the Altoona Area High School intramural field in this 2010 file photo. According to a planned building project, the intramural field is to be demolished and rebuilt at the former site of the B building.

Mirror file photo / A crowd gathers on the Altoona Area High School intramural field in this 2010 file photo. According to a planned building project, the intramural field is to be demolished and rebuilt at the former site of the B building.

Editor’s note: This is the second in a series of stories gauging community reaction to Altoona Area High School’s proposed building project.

They may be long removed from the job, but former school administrators who are now part of the area’s retirement community have an eye on the Altoona Area School District’s monumental school building plan.

“I think it’s a terrible climate (for a project) because of the burden of pension costs that threaten every aspect of the school budget,” said retired Greater Altoona Career and Technology Center Executive Director Lanny Ross.

Ross served briefly as Altoona’s interim superintendent before the previous board hired John Kopicki in 2015. Under Kopicki’s tutelage, the previous board hired KCBA Architects to conduct a study of all of the school district’s building needs.

The $88 million project the current board is pursuing stems from that study.

On the other hand, Ross said it’s a good time to build because of interest rates and competitive bids on construction rates.

“I think contractors would really go after a school like that,” Ross said. “It’s a desirable project for larger contractors.”

The district’s construction manager, Damian Spahr of Reynolds Construction, confirmed that during the board’s last meeting.

“There’s a lot of bidder interest in this project. Any large project like this in the past 12 years has been at or under budget. We have very high confidence we have the right numbers,” he said, reassuring the board that the project would cost $88 million or less.

Other options needed

Frank Meloy, former assistant superintendent, has serious reservations.

“The problems I see is, first, the county is undergoing a reassessment, and people are seeing their property taxes increase because of that alone,” he said. “This new building further raises the possibility of future tax increases. Many people here live on a retirement income. Retirees don’t get increases in retirement benefits. So I see the $88 million price tag, and it’s scary.”

From 1968 to 2010, Meloy helped now-retired Superintendent Dennis Murray lead the district. Murray did not respond to calls and an email for comment on the current administration’s building plan.

“The A building was built in the early ’70s, and the B building was remodeled at the same time,” Meloy said.

However, the B building, erected in 1928, had limited updating.

“I’m sure there are need for repairs, but the new building is something the school district at this point can’t afford. We need to look at other options,” Meloy said.

The purpose of the project is to resolve space issues in the elementary schools while meeting the instructional needs of the district’s secondary programs, according to district documents.

A new building would allow the district to draw ninth-graders out of the junior high and into the high school, while also drawing all sixth-graders from crowded elementary schools into the junior high vacated by the ninth-graders. About two, or in some cases three, rooms at each elementary school would then be opened up. Overcrowding is apparent at Ebner Elementary school, especially where students learn in modular classrooms rented by the school board. The board may decide to go out to bid on the high school project Monday.

That decision doesn’t commit the board to the project. It would receive bids back by March 21. In the meantime, on March 10, the board is scheduled to receive alternative building plans from different architects.

Original plan defended

KCBA architect Mike Kelly and several school board members argue that the project set to go out for bid is neither exorbitant nor unprecedented.

The district built new high school or junior high buildings to replace old ones three times in the past, Kelly said during a presentation at the board’s last meeting.

Most recently, in 2008, the district closed its doors to its two junior high school schools built in the 1920s — Keith and Roosevelt — and opened the new Altoona Area Junior High School.

In fact, the junior high school construction cost is the same as the planned new building cost at $48 million.

The junior high cost $48.5 million, and the district continues to pay debt service for that project through 2030, at which point the already budgeted money for the junior high payments would be used to pay the new debt of the high school project.

The new B building, at the same cost as the junior high, is not a “Taj Mahal” as some may claim. Board Vice President Wayne Hippo noted at the last meeting that the board even reduced the cost by choosing metal siding on one of its walls instead of brick.

Nonetheless, the whole cost is $88 million, which also includes the sitework and demolition of the old B building ($7.8 million) and a renovation of the A building ($19 million) in addition to the $48.1 million cost for the actual construction of the new B building.

So the whole price is for a complex consisting of two buildings that take up two city blocks and are linked with a suspended, enclosed pedestrian bridge, as it states in the board’s plan submitted for approval to the state Department of Education.

Building histories

The A building, which was constructed in 1972, houses the gymnasium, natatorium, kitchen, cafeteria and classrooms.

The renovation of that building includes all new systems — technology, educational equipment and interior finishes — along with a new fitness and dance center and cooking labs. The 90-year-old B building contains classrooms, an auditorium and the district offices.

Plans for the new B building are mostly all instructional spaces, including a performance theater, music studios, audio and recording capabilities, art classrooms, a business center, maker spaces, technology centers with opportunities for individual research

and group collaboration, “Genius Bar” information center, two learning commons –one for STEM and the other for arts and business — and an outdoor classroom.

In addition, the building project will allow for more natural light and improved access to technology, according to project approval documents submitted to the State Department of Education.

Field, tennis relocation

The project, as developed, entails construction of a new B building on the existing practice field between the junior high and the A building.

The location of the planned building requires the fall of a few dominos, and that isn’t popular.

To create space for the building, the existing power plant is to be demolished, and tennis courts are to be relocated. The intramural field is to be demolished and rebuilt at the former site of the B building.

Some claim the power plant is in fine working order. However, district spokeswoman Paula Foreman said it currently only serves the high school buildings, when in the past it served Roosevelt Junior High School and the Greater Altoona Career and Technology Center, as well.

Smaller boilers will be installed with the project to help the district save energy costs, she said.

Forms submitted last year to the state Depart­ment of Education for approval of the project assert that a new mechanical system would be included to maximize energy efficiency and improve indoor air quality.

“In addition to establishing a state-of-the-art educational environment to serve future generations of Altoona Area students, the renewed high school will serve as an important center for community life and catalyst for the continued revitalization of the City of Altoona,” the document states.

Meloy foresees an opposite effect.

“I think that for the district, with a deficit budget now (for reasons including the state’s pension crisis mentioned by Ross), going to an expensive project is something the Altoona community is not prepared for,” he said. “We don’t have a growing tax base. Knowing there are going to be increases — even if we are told it’s going to be minimal — it is more than what their (taxpayers) budgets can handle.”

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