AUSTINTOWN MIDDLE SCHOOL Change sought in school zoning

There's no potential buyer lined up, the board president says.
AUSTINTOWN -- The school board wants to change the zoning of the Austintown Middle School property to make it more attractive to potential buyers.
The Mahoning Avenue school, built in 1916 as a high school, is expected to be demolished when pupils move into a new middle school. Construction on the new school, on Raccoon Road, is expected to start within a month.
The board, through Western Reserve Land Consultants of Boardman, submitted a request to rezone 15 acres to business district zoning. The zoning is now a combination of business, agricultural and residential.
Mahoning County Planning Commission is set to hear the request today, and a hearing before the township zoning commission is scheduled for 7 p.m. March 31 at the township building.
Michael P. Kurilla Jr., township zoning inspector, said the school board has proposed maintaining a 50-foot buffer with the residential zoning along Howard Avenue. That's where the school property abuts homes.
Brad Gessner, board president, said board members believe that the rezoning will make the property more attractive to potential buyers when the time comes to sell it.
"We're looking at getting our ducks in order," he said.
If approved, the business zoning would conform with the surrounding property which is mostly businesses, Gessner added.
No buyer so far
There isn't a potential buyer lined up, he said, adding that pupils won't move out of the building until the new school is ready, sometime in the 2006-07 school year.
Architects submitted plans last month for the $26 million, three-floor, 174,668-square-foot school to the township's zoning and fire departments.
The new school will house sixth through eighth grades. Fourth- and fifth-graders will attend Frank Ohl Middle School. Frank Ohl and Austintown Middle School now house fifth- through eighth-graders with kindergarten through fourth-graders attending one of the district's five elementary schools.
The board borrowed the money to build the school through the 2.9-mill bond issue voters approved in November 2003.
The plans submitted for review show the first floor with eighth-grade classrooms, offices, a cafetorium, gymnasium, offices, special education classrooms and vocal and instrumental music rooms on the first floor.
The second floor will accommodate seventh-grade classrooms and a media center with sixth-graders on the building's third floor.