Scotts Valley Middle School is in for a serious makeover, with demolition of the entire school scheduled for the summer of 2016 followed by a year-long construction process.
The project’s 14-member design committee is nearly finished with design plans, and hopes to have a full concept for the project after hosting a workshop on Thursday, March 26.
“This is a 40- to 50-year facility,” Scotts Valley Unified School District Superintendent Penny Weaver said this week. “I mean look at the current one; it’s 70 years old right? So one of the challenges of a public building is coming up with something that meets needs today but also realistically 40 years into the future.”
The design committee is working with architects to ensure the project maintains that kind of longevity. The community committee includes middle school and district staff members along with several community members and two school board members, Scotts Valley Middle School Principal Mary Lonhart said.
The project was made possible by the $35 million Measure A school bond measure, which voters within the Scotts Valley Unified School District approved last year. The middle school was built in 1941 as a works project administration project and will be completely demolished and rebuilt as part of the project.
“California doesn’t provide funding for buildings anymore through the state funds, so communities rely upon their local community fund options, which is what Measure A is doing for us,” Lonhart said.
The planning phase is complete after being financed through Measure A, and the design phase has been unfolding over the last couple of weeks, Weaver said. Three design workshops are already complete, and one more is scheduled for next Thursday. Initial drawings will be sent to the board of trustees, Weaver said, and then the community will be invited to look at them and provide feedback.
Measure A provides $33 million for the middle school project. Brent McClure of Palo Alto-based Cody Anderson Wasney Architects is the principle architect, and the board expects to select a project contractor during its April 28 meeting.
At this point, it appears the area around Scotts Valley Drive and Mount Hermon Road will likely contain a series of two-story buildings, said SV Planning Commission Chair and Design Committee Member Russ Patterson.
“The school site is very small,” Patterson said. “Optimally, the lot site should be about double the size that it is now for a middle school.”
The district has been studying for more than a year about how to house middle school students while construction is under way, Weaver said. Though the district considered renting out neighboring open school facilities, the board recently decided against that based upon input from staff and parents.
“(Parents and staff) would much prefer to stay here in Scotts Valley, so we are working to make that happen,” Weaver said.
Currently, the school campus houses slightly more than 600 students. The new school will be able to house about 700 students, Weaver explained.
“This is a smaller size campus for a middle school. It doesn’t quite meet the state recommended amount of acreage, but in our budget we did not plan to acquire additional property,” Weaver said. “After studying that topic, we determined that rebuilding on the same site would be in our best interest.”
Construction is estimated to take 12 to 16 months once demolition occurs in 2016, so the school project should be ready for students in 2017, Weaver said. Along with a brand new campus, the new middle school will also have a full-sized field for league sports events.
The district aims to ensure that the school can house various other community events as well.
“There’s a lot of community events that happen there at the gymnasium and the multipurpose room, so we are working on a design for the school that’s for the students and also for the all of Scotts Valley to be able to use,” Patterson said.
