ThisWeek Clintonville

11/23/2006

Sue Hagan

As soon as Columbus Public Schools gets the nod from city planners, it will move full speed ahead to build its new downtown high school at the corner of Mound and Fourth streets.

The project likely will go out to bid in early 2006, with construction to start next spring, said lead architect Tony Udeagbala.

District officials and architects were awaiting project approval by the Downtown Commission at a meeting scheduled for Tuesday, a day after ThisWeek went to press.

Late last week, district Superintendent Gene Harris said she felt confident that approval was pending. She has not been involved in discussions with the commission, but has been kept abreast of questions and concerns raised along the way.

“We don’t have any indication to the contrary,” she said. “Our goal was to be up front and forthright and to be a good neighbor to downtown.”

Steve Wittmann, a member of the Downtown Commission, said last week that he couldn’t predict how the panel would vote, but said he is pleased with the district’s decision to place a school downtown and with the way the plans have gone.

“This is a major building; it’s going to have a presence,” he said. “I’m delighted to see them do this in the downtown core area.”

He said he had seen the plans twice, and that commission members had a few suggestions.

“One thing we urged them to do was to feel free about being lively about the design,” he said. “It’s OK to add some color. … We also talked about building (it) in a style that could last a while, instead of coming across as being trendy. If it’s looked at 20 years from now, will it seem dated?

” … I think the architects listened to our comments,” he said.

Wittmann said the new school will be a boost to the district.

“They have wonderful buildings, but they are not visible,” he said. “This building is on a heavily traveled street (Fourth Street) where everyone driving by will see it.”

The downtown school, billed as an alternative high school but with a career center focus, is slated to open in late 2008. It will be 134,000 square feet in size and has a construction budget of $21-million.

Holding to the budget has been the toughest part of the process, said Udeagbala, of Machisa Design, which is partnering with O.A. Spencer and Triad in designing the building.

The architects reduced the building from four stories to three, and the school will be of masonry construction rather than steel, he said.

He is proposing a block product that looks like brick for the exterior, and the building incorporates a lot of glass, especially along the Fourth Street exterior. Programs on the west and northwest sides of the building will be those with public access.

“Students want to engage the downtown community,” Udeagbala said.

In particular, the public will be invited into the school to dine at a student-run restaurant, and cosmetology students will practice their haircuts and styling techniques on the public, said Pete Maneff, executive director of high school curriculum.

The three-story media center at the northwest corner of the building is an area that also could be readily open to the public, Udeagbala said, because it is separated from the rest of the school by security doors.

Other programs in the personal and public services areas include criminal justice, emergency technician, fire and law enforcement.

Business and technology programs will include computer technology and graphics, electronics, electronics and engineering technology, precision machining, accounting, business information services and logistics.

Harris has pushed for a downtown high school ever since discussions began in earnest in 2002 on upgrading school buildings.

“Our thought was locating this high school and these programs … so as many of our students as possible could access them. Also, this location gives us a proximity to possible internships and connections to the community,” she said. “And having the center accessible in the evening for adult programs — we want to explore that.”

After a two-year search for a downtown site, the old Heer building at 364 S. Fourth St. was selected, and the district purchased the property last year for $2.2-million.

Currently, there are four CPS career centers. But after the downtown school is built and renovations to the Fort Hayes Career Center are completed, three other career centers in northeast, southeast and northwest Columbus will close.