Saturday, April 20th, 2024
Officials OK school site design
By William Kincaid
Submitted Photo
A rendering of the proposed school's front entrance facing East Wayne Street.
CELINA - Celina Planning commissioners on Thursday night green-lighted the site design of the new Celina Middle School/High School on East Wayne Street, the second phase of a $130 million building project.
Officials with project architect Garmann Miller unveiled renderings of the proposed 202,500-square-foot building earlier this week at a school board meeting and then again at the planning commission meeting.
"We did just submit design development April 4 and that is now in Peterson Construction's hands as well as our estimator to estimate the project, make sure we're still within budget and continue forward with bid documents, which are slated to go out at the end of August," said Mandy Niekamp, the lead project design architect.
Garmann Miller went with a three-floor concept with academic wings for classrooms, a front entrance facing East Wayne Street and core space behind for a competition gym, cafetorium/student dining area, music and career tech, with the main event entrance on the east side of the building.
The existing middle school will be repurposed for Head Start, district offices and school athletic storage. The CAPT building will remain and a portion of the former Tri Star section of the high school will be repurposed for new athletic facilities in the future, Niekamp said.
"The new high school will be located in between the current high school … and the current elementary building, which will be demolished as soon as school is out this year," Niekamp said. "Holly Street runs right through here and that was recently vacated so that the school building could be located here."
Submitted Photo
Project architect Garmann Miller has released renderings of the new Celina Middle School/High School on East Wayne Street. The new building for grades 7-12 will have three floors for classrooms and administrative spaces.
Touching on the overall floor plan, Niekamp said the first floor of the building facing East Wayne Street will be used for administrative spaces, elective courses, special education and high school English literature.
"The second floor houses mostly middle school classrooms … with some additional high school classrooms," Niekamp said. "The third floor has high school science, math and some foreign language."
Further on in the building design is a main student dining area/kitchen.
"This area doubles as cafetorium-type space with a stage," Niekamp said.
She then pointed to a "large competition gym with the flanking middle school gym and locker rooms that serve both and career tech spaces at the back."
"Then the music and vocal is at the very north side of the building to keep some of the sounds away from the academic areas," she said.
On East Wayne Street, there are three entries/exits to the school, one for buses and service vehicles, a second for parents and staff and a third for students. Once parents on school property, they can park their vehicles in a lane near the front entrance to pick up or drop off their children.
There will also be an entry/exit for staff to the north of the campus at near the the intersection of Holly Street and Johnson Avenue.
"All the new student parking, parent drop off runs right along the front," she said. "Buses are located in … (a) lot at the west side of the building."
"We're looking at safety overall on the site," said Matt Hibner, Garman Miller's director of architecture. "That's why we're trying to segregate traffic between students, the pick up and drop off lane and also the buses."
Submitted Photo
The new High School will be located between the existing Primary and High School buildings.
There will also be two detention basins for stormwater.
"The site is uniquely positioned to where it falls directly on the continental divide, pretty much Holly Street," Hibner said. "Some of the stormwater is going to have to go to the west of the site and the other is going to have to go to the east and that's why you see two detention basins."
The new 7-12 grade building is scheduled to be completed in late fall 2026 or early winter 2027. The existing high school will be razed in early spring 2027 and any final site construction will wrap up in late spring or early summer 2027.
On the west end of Celina, work continues on a new school for grades pre-K to 6, which will include a 115,000-square-foot addition to the existing Celina Intermediate School at 227 Portland St.
"Pre-K just keeps rolling along, so that's going extremely well," said facilities director Phil Metz earlier this week.
The addition will contain classrooms for grades pre-K-3, while the 81,000-square-foot intermediate school will be renovated and reformatted to serve grades 4-6.
Submitted Photo
The event entrance will face East.
The addition is expected to be completed by next school year, allowing for partial occupancy. Students in grades pre-K-3 will start the school year in the new addition.
Meanwhile, students in grades 4-6 for the first semester next school year will be taught in Celina Elementary School while the intermediate school undergoes renovation.
The renovation should be finished by Dec. 31, and those students will relocate to the intermediate school for the second semester.
Once completed, elementary students will no longer have to transition to a new school every so many years, a change school board president Carl Huber believes will alleviate stress and anxiety and promote stability and academic growth.
The overall project will usher in a new era for the district with modern classrooms, state-of-the-art technology and a sense of unity and common purpose among staff and students, officials say.
Submitted Photo
A portion of Holly Street has been vacated so the new school can be located where the street currently is.
