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The Celina Fieldhouse, which in 2021 underwent a nearly $100,000 facelift involving light replacements, a floor revamp and a new coat of paint on the ceiling, will remain the home of the Celina Bulldogs basketball teams until a new gymnasium is completed as part of the ongoing construction of the grades 7-12 building on East Wayne Street.
CELINA - School board members Tuesday night voted to spare the life of the iconic but outdated Fieldhouse to make use of its locker rooms and other amenities, yet emphasized that high school basketball games will be played in a new gymnasium once the ongoing grades 7-12 school building is completed.
Board members convened for a special meeting to decide the fate of the Fieldhouse as construction of the new grades 7-12 school is well underway on East Wayne Street.
Built in 1939, the Fieldhouse holds rich nostalgic value and is highly regarded by some as a one-of-a-kind gem from a bygone era, while other community members believe it has served its purpose and should be laid to rest.
The Ohio Facilities Construction Commission has offered to co-fund the abatement and demolition of the Fieldhouse and education complex building.
After holding a brief public comment session, board members voted on a motion to demolish the Fieldhouse as part of the current master plan. Board members Adam Schleucher, Julie Sommer, Carl Huber and Jon Clouse all voted no, while Mark Huelsman cast the sole yes vote.
They then took time to explain the reasoning behind their decision.
"I think we need to continue to look forward and grow as a district, but we also have to look at what the community has said, and the survey showed that, and that's why I'm voting no," said Schleucher, the board president, in regards to a community survey administered in February.
Out of the 1,108 survey respondents, 58% said that there are traditional or older district facilities that should be preserved. At the same time, 36% of the overall respondents said that they strongly agree that the school district should prioritize cost-effective solutions, even if it means replacing older buildings. Just 16% of the overall respondents said they strongly disagreed with the latter statement.
"The biggest reason that I voted no is by doing this and holding onto the Fieldhouse and locker rooms and things for the football field gives us a gradual way (to implement a master facility plan)," Clouse said. "I think we will eventually, not me but the next boards … move into the master plan when we have more money."
The overall building project, which also involved a new 115,000-square-foot addition for grades pre-K through 3 and the revamping of the Celina Intermediate School for grades 4-6, is a partnership between the school district and OFCC.
It was budgeted at $106.6 million but ballooned to $121.7 million due to a host of factors, according to Huelsman.
Rather than ask voters to pony up more money, school officials ate into their Locally Funded Initiatives and made cuts where they could. For instance, rather than going with a fixed-seat auditorium, board members opted for an auditeria/cafetorium with custom chairs that retract like bleachers.
"There isn't money now to do all the things we want to do in this master plan, and if we take the Fieldhouse down, that pretty much takes the football stadium with it because it no longer has bathrooms or locker rooms," Clouse continued.
Keeping the Fieldhouse gives current and future school officials flexibility as they eventually plot out and commit to other facility projects down the road, such as a potential new football stadium, according to Clouse.
Huber said he truly feels that the future home of the high school basketball program is the new high school gymnasium capable of seating 2,000 people, to be built as part of the grades 7-12 building.
"The new Fieldhouse is going to be in the high school," he said. "So it's going to be a homage to the old Fieldhouse, it's going to be state of the art. The kids are going to love it, the fans are going to love it."
Having said that, Huber remarked that he has no problem with keeping the current Fieldhouse as an extra gym for various activities.
"How long will it last, what we're going to do with it? That's yet to be seen," he said.
Huber said his vote was driven by the uncertainty of how far the remaining project dollars can be stretched.
"Right now, like Jon said, we don't have the funding. We don't even know how much funding we're going to have by the time we're through with the high school," Huber said. "We may run into some more increases in costs. We don't know. We ran into them in the elementary (building project)."
Echoing comments made by some residents, Huber said the district may have to rely on fundraising efforts to bring to fruition other components of a master facilities plan.
Sommer stressed the importance of putting education first and completing the grades 7-12 project within budget.
Clouse also pointed out that the board acknowledges the criticism leveled by some about the scaled-back performing arts space.
"But I think when people see what this new performance art center is like, they're going to be impressed. It's going to be very nice," he said. "So have patience in the next couple of years until you see what this performance art center is going to look like."
Built in 1939, the Celina Fieldhouse is attached to the education complex, which went up in 1924. School board members Tuesday night voted to keep the Fieldhouse as part of the grades 7-12 building project.
Earlier in the meeting, attendee Theresa Howick asked who was responsible for designating the gym in the grades 7-12 building as the future home of the basketball program. Superintendent Brooke Gessler replied that it was the school administration's decision to make.
"The board may have a preference, but that's internal," she said of the decision.
Elaborating further on the commitment to playing high school basketball games in the new facility, Gessler told The Daily Standard that the district needs to move to a new environment.
"We are looking to the future, we are looking for that safer environment that doesn't have barriers for not only our community but for anyone with disabilities to attend," she said. "I think it'll be very welcoming. That's not to say that there couldn't be an option for some kind of like throwback game or some special occasion. That's not off the table."
Tuesday night's original agenda listed a motion to "button-up" the Fieldhouse at an estimated cost of $1.7 million. However, before setting the agenda, Schleucher changed the motion to "demolish the Fieldhouse as part of the current master plan."
Gessler said the estimated expense to "button-up" the Fieldhouse - meaning keep it safe and compliant - would be necessary only if the education complex to which it's attached is demolished, as recommended by OFCC.
"So (the Fieldhouse is) going to stand, and so right now, until anything changes with the ed complex, if there's no demo then there's no need to button anything up because that is one structure - the ed complex and the Fieldhouse," she told the newspaper after the meeting. "Right now … everything just needs to kind of stay as is, and then in the future, if there is a shift and the ed complex portion comes down, that's when there's the buttoning up. They won't have to vote necessarily on that because the Fieldhouse will still remain."
She did not know when board members would have to decide on whether to raze the education complex.
"I think the district's timeline to make that decision is to wait and see what the 7-12 building is," she said.
