BELLEFONTE — Work is underway to determine how to best move forward with the long-talked-about Bellefonte elementary building project, with hopes to have concept plans completed by early next year.
During an Oct. 4 meeting, the school board heard an update from Damion Spahr of SitelogIQ and Mike Kelly of KCBA Architects on how they are evaluating the current situation to determine next steps. Currently a capacity study is being completed.
“It will tell us how much space is needed, how much space is being used and can the space be used differently? Or do we have challenges there with how we use our buildings? We’ll continue to have board updates and we’ll move from that to determine square footage needs, aligning those with capacity,” Spahr said.
After that, Spahr said the team will look at building options and cost rationale while it develops the educational specifications that are needed for the district.
“Those educational specifications prescribe what spaces we need in each part of the elementary schools to meet the program so that if we’re doing improvements, whether it’s renovations or building new, we’re kind of prescribing the same types of facilities for each program,” said Spahr.
With all that in mind, the team hopes to have conceptual plans and graphics to the board by late December or early January.
Kelly said the team has an aggressive schedule over the next couple months to get to that point.
The next step then is to take a visit to each elementary school for a walk-through and to sit down with administration to “provide another review of the conditions.”
“We are focusing on capacity and educational curriculum. How many students fit into the school? Is there is a space for a new program that is desired to be taught in each building? What can we do to make some advantages in some of the buildinsg that will be remaining to include some programs in the newer facility?” said Kelly.
“With that collaborative effort with your principals and administrative staff, we are excited to come back Nov. 2 with a capacity study and the beginnings of some initial concepts for the size of the building,” said Kelly.
Before the Nov. 2 meeting, the team will also be providing an update to the board on Oct. 18.
During that meeting, the team will recommend a civil engineering firm to access the land behind the high school, said Spahr. The firm that is chosen will also look at the district’s athletics fields to see what might need to be built on the site.
“We’re doing an athletics evaluation, meaning we’re going to take an inventory of the fields, use patterns, understanding scheduling issues, how many groups there are, talking to stakeholders and determining what we need to do in terms of adding fields or changing our field usages, et cetera,” Spahr said.
