Board, public discuss project

The school board hasn't yet voted to seek a bond issue.
By DENISE DICK
VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER
BOARDMAN -- A project to renovate and improve district school buildings could cost anywhere from $34 million for basic renovations to $57 million for more amenities.
The school board is likely to borrow the money through the sale of bonds to finance the project and a bond issue will probably be on the ballot in November, officials said.
Members of the school board and the public heard at a special meeting Thursday from the three architectural firms selected to study the buildings, make recommendations for improvements and estimate costs.
The school board hasn't voted to place a bond issue on the ballot. The deadline to get an issue on the general election ballot is in August.
Input urged
Tom Costello, a former township trustee who is co-chairing the facilities committee, urged the more than 100 attendees at the meeting to fill out comment cards, offering their input to board members.
"These are difficult decisions and these are decisions that the board has to make," Costello said.
The ages of the district's seven buildings range from Boardman Center Middle School, built in 1911, to the 37-year-old high school. The late 1960s marked the last time the district had a bond issue on the ballot, district officials have said.
Strollo Architects Inc. of Youngstown studied options for the high school auxiliary gymnasium, Market Street Elementary and the football stadium.
The 4M Company of Boardman addressed Stadium Drive and Robinwood Lane elementary schools.
Olsavsky-Jaminet Architects of Youngstown handled Boardman Glenwood and Center middle schools and West Boulevard Elementary.
Each proposal includes a secure entrance for each building, so that people coming into the building would be visible from the school offices.
The elementary school proposals entail additional classrooms, improved technology spaces and media centers and better handicapped accessibility.
Traffic separation
The elementary and middle schools proposals also include creating areas to allow separation between where parents drop off and pick up their children and the bus loading and unloading.
At the high school, Thomas Madej, a vice president at Strollo, outlined three ideas for an auxiliary gymnasium.
The first one would offer three regulation size basketball courts with a multi-purpose floor, a coaches suite and a wrestling facility. The second provides a larger space for wrestling, and the third offers an indoor competitive running track with spectator seating and an eight-lane swimming pool as well as a wrestling facility.
Those options range from $7 million to $13 million.
Other recommendations at the high school include additional parking and construction of a turn lane from the school onto Market Street.
Improvements at the stadium where teams play soccer could be done to allow football, which is now played in a stadium at Center Middle School, to be played at the high school.
That cost, which includes a new press box, synthetic field surface and stadium seating, would run between $2.5 million and $3 million.
Madej also said that the stadium at Center could be used as a more public area, providing a place for residents to run and walk, by removing the fencing and adding landscaping.