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District downsizes, centralizes
New buildings
Two new elementary schools will be built near the current Frank Ohl and Watson schools.
One building will house students in kindergarten through second grade. The other will house students in third through fifth grade.
Construction will begin in about one year, and the schools are scheduled to open for the 2013-14 school year.
As this work gets under way, discussions will begin on whether to renovate Austintown Fitch High School at a cost of about $42 million.
Source: Austintown schools
Austintown school officials will demolish six buildings and construct two new schools
By Elise Franco
Austintown
School district officials say demolition is the best option, after looking into what to do with six soon-to-be-vacant school buildings.
Superintendent Vince Colaluca said the construction of two new elementary schools isn’t scheduled for completion until the 2013-14 school year. But the school board has already discussed what will happen to four current elementary schools — Lloyd, Lynn Kirk, Watson and Woodside — as well as Davis Elementary, which closed in 2008, and Frank Ohl Intermediate School.
Colaluca said because the Ohio School Facilities Commission is paying for $27 million of the $50 million project, money has already been earmarked for demolition of those six buildings. The district passed a 2.9-mill bond issue in May to raise the remaining $23 million.
The plan will unify the district into one central campus on property near Watson Elementary and Frank Ohl Intermediate schools, Colaluca said. The two new schools will house students in kindergarten through second grade and third-to-fifth-grades, respectively.
“There’s a component in the agreement with the OSFC for demolition and abatement,” he said. “We’ll then bring those properties back to green space.”
Colaluca said after that happens the district could continue using the properties or try to sell them to the township or another entity.
Dennis Kaplan, OSFC project administrator, said it’s not uncommon for larger districts to demolish vacant buildings.
Locally, the Youngstown City School District is removing 17 old schools, and Warren City School District will have taken down 19 once its building program is completed — both using OSFC funding.
“Most districts are demolitions. A lot of districts build right on the same site because that’s the only land they have,” Kaplan said. “Urban areas are usually tearing the buildings down unless it was a renovation of a building.”
Kaplan said any district using OSFC money is required to offer vacant buildings to charter schools for purchase before taking any other action.
Because no charters expressed interest in Austintown’s buildings, the district was free to proceed however it wanted.
He said there are several reasons why it’s difficult to reuse dated schools.
“The issue is, you look at these old buildings and try to sell them and run into issues like making them handicap accessible buildings and having proper safety,” he said.
Township Trustee Lisa Oles said Colaluca talked with township trustees previously about potentially using Davis Elementary as a senior center.
Oles said ultimately the building didn’t fit the township’s needs. “There are too many upgrades that need to be done,” she said. “We didn’t feel it was centrally located in the township, and we wanted something we could move into that was pretty much ready to go.”
Oles said using any of the other five schools is unlikely for the same reasons.
Anthony Hayek, vice president of architecture for MS Consultants in Youngstown, said most of the firm’s school projects are through the OSFC. Hayek said almost all of those districts chose to demolish the vacant schools.
About three years ago, he said, the Wellsville School District wanted to sell its vacant building to the village of Wellsville to be used as a government center.
“We talked about the cost of converting the old school to a government center, which would have been a very good usage,” Hayek said. “It never came to fruition because of a lack of funding.”
Colaluca said the question that remains is when those six buildings will come down.
They will remain intact until the construction projects are completed, he said.
“All of the buildings are staying until the work is done because we don’t want to relocate [elementary] students,” he said.
The district could opt to try for the second phase of the project — a $42 million renovation of Fitch High School, Colaluca said. The OSFC would also pay for about 50 percent of that project.
“If we move ahead with phase two, we’ll need to think about using some of those buildings as swing space for the high school students,” he said.
Colaluca said the board will decide whether to move forward with Fitch renovations before the elementary schools’ construction is finished.