Architects gave a presentation about the W. Reily Brown Elementary School renovation and expansion at the Oct. 14 Caesar Rodney School Board of Education meeting.

    As presented, the school would expand slightly with an administration area added at the front as well as a bus entrance on the west side of the building. The pod behind the school, which currently holds classrooms, would have an enclosed connector and house the library and a multipurpose room.

    Tony Vassalotti, the project manager from Buck Simpers Architect + Associates Inc, said the classrooms are already laid out well; the building just needs to be brought up to code.

    “The main spaces won’t change,” he said.

    Two additional classrooms will be built where the current two-story library is, and other features like geothermal heating, handicap accessible bathrooms and an updated kitchen will be added, Vassalotti explained to the school board.

    Assistant Superintendent Lou Ann Carlson said in a later interview the total cost of the renovation and expansion is $11.8 million, with $263,600 of that coming from local funds.

    The plan is to take the project out for bid in March and possibly start construction next summer as long as McIlvaine’s construction is finished and the state funds come through, she said.

    The school, which is nearly 40 years old, needs to be renovated for mechanical and infrastructure reasons, Carlson said, adding that the district does a good job maintaining buildings to make them last.

    Depending on construction costs, Fitzgerald said part of the pod could be left unfinished. However, the enclosed connector between the two buildings, which will basically act as a hallway, is a priority.

    The finished renovation should allow more students to attend the school, he added. Brown currently has an enrollment of 444 students.

    Fitzgerald also said the district heard from the Department of Education that W.B. Simpson and Allen Frear elementary schools are in the pipeline to receive money for their renovations in the 2009-2010 budget year. The projects should be fully funded by 2010-2011.

Board concerns

    During the architectural presentation, several school board members were concerned that some of the new angles in the school are slanted. For example the hallway that runs past the current office area, which will become the guidance area, has a curved wall.

    Vassalotti said they did that to avoid one of the main support beams.

    Other areas questioned were the administrative addition and canopy entrances, which all have angled walls. Board member David Sechler said he wants to make sure there’s good reason for it and that it won’t add to the construction cost.

    “I just don’t want people to be repairing things 20 years from now and saying, ‘Why couldn’t they cut a right angle?’” he said.

    Vassalotti said the angled front canopy gives the building an easily identifiable main entrance and faces the direction where parents would be driving in. The other canopies were designed similarly to keep a uniform look.

    As for the administration addition, he said, the walls are angled because it allows the entrance vestibule to have two sets of double doors, which would leave it the same size as the current space. Squared walls would mean only one set of double doors.

    Board president David Henderson said he would rather see more office space than empty vestibule space.

    “The goal is too get the most space for our buck,” he said.

    Principal Buck Simpers of the architectural firm said that the problem with cutting down circulation space, like the vestibule, is that space is gone for good. Areas like classrooms, on the other hand, can always be added.

    Board member Clifton Coleman said they also should remember that the fire marshal might not allow the size of the vestibule to be reduced, which means the angled walls would have to stay.

    School Principal Craig Wearden said he’s happy with the changes as they will make the school a more manageable building as well as a safer and more secure one.

In other business…

    Fitzgerald reported the district’s Sept. 30 unit count came in with 7,297 students. This number is up 136 from last year.

    The schools that saw the biggest increases were Allen Frear Elementary, George S. Welch Elementary, Air Base Middle and Caesar Rodney High School, he said. W.B. Simpson, Nellie H. Stokes and Star Hill elementary schools all stayed fairly flat, while F. Niel Postlethwait Middle and Fred Fifer Middle both saw enrollments decrease.

    After the meeting, he said with the housing market slowing down they weren’t expecting as large of an overall district increase.

Email Jayne Gest at jayne.gest@doverpost.com.