HPM recommends additions, renovations at current school sites to accommodate growth

After studying demographics, facilities and projected trends, Hoar Program Management presented its recommendations for meeting Homewood City Schools’ growth needs this week to an array of community members during meetings on Oct. 24 and 26.

Projections from Cooperative Strategies show moderate growth at all levels of Homewood City Schools but flattening over time, Director of Preconstruction Services Greg Ellis said. However, he noted that in response to the likelihood of Hall-Kent seeing a similar growth boom like Edgewood and Shades Cahaba elementary schools, his team modified the growth projection at Hall-Kent to about 38 percent over the next decade. This would equal about 700 students enrolled at Hall-Kent in total by the 2026-2027 school year.

HPM narrowed its options to three choices: realigning the schools by grade, with a new intermediate school for grades 5-6 near Homewood Middle School; switching the uses of the middle and high school; or keeping the grades in their current locations and investing in renovations and additions.

All three options required work being done at all schools to add room and meet modern needs. In their research, Ellis said HPM found that renovating and expanding the schools without changing the grade levels was the best fit not only for the $55 million budget provided by the city, but also for top priorities they heard in community meetings and surveys: adding space, low student-teacher ratio, traffic flow, parking, security, ADA accessibility and long-term operational costs.

“A lot of these options change things so dramatically in this system that it lost the culture,” Ellis said on Oct. 24, regarding other possibilities being considered. He also noted that building a new intermediate school or new facilities would significantly raise the total cost of the project.

Superintendent Bill Cleveland said on Oct. 26 that it was gratifying to see the top priorities in the community and faculty surveys align so closely. In cities where the schools and community can’t agree on what they need most, he said, “that can start a rift through the community. The fact that we are all aligned is another blessing that we don’t take for granted.”

Ellis and the HPM team presented renderings of the renovations each school would need to accommodate its present student body and future growth, though he noted that “this is not a fully developed design … but this gives us the framework to have those discussions with the faculty, with the staff, with the parents and teachers.”

Though the plan doesn’t include new buildings, Ellis said in the Oct. 26 meeting that HPM wants to make small renovations throughout the system to make the schools still feel new.

“We want to touch the schools; we want to make them improved,” he said.

At Edgewood Elementary, expansion would include a four-classroom single-story addition, new restrooms, a new roof, electrical upgrades, a more secure entry vestibule and the expansion of the cafeteria into the theater space to make more room for cooking, serving and eating lunch. Ellis noted that Edgewood currently serves lunch from 10 a.m. to 1:20 p.m., and additional space could allow the school to remove one of these lunch periods.

Hall-Kent’s list of proposed changes includes a two-story addition at the rear of the school, adding six classrooms, as well as a more secure entry. The school would also receive a new roof and new carpeting. The new classrooms mean “it may be a little spacious when we move in,” Ellis said, but the school should grow into it and be able to meet the ideal student-teacher ratios of 18:1 for grades K-2 and 23:1 for grades 3-5.

Shades Cahaba, like Edgewood, is nearing 100 years old and, in the next 13-20 years, will likely need a more comprehensive renovation or even replacement project, Cleveland said. The proposed plan by HPM includes projects for short-term needs such as an addition to expand the cafeteria outward by about 25 feet near the main entrance to the school, as well as replacing the theater with three new classrooms. The school would also receive a security entry and other building upgrades.

Cleveland said facility assessments and discussions with principals showed the elementary schools’ theater facilities are “significantly underutilized” and the cafeterias or gymnasiums can accommodate most student and parent events. There will not be plans to build a new theater to replace those at Edgewood and Shades Cahaba.

“Everything you could do in the Little Theatre at Edgewood, you could do in the cafeteria,” Cleveland said in the Oct. 24 meeting.

Homewood Middle School would receive a more extensive set of changes under HPM’s plan. Ellis proposed an addition near the gym for cheer, wrestling and other athletic uses. The current wrestling room would become the choral department’s room, and the HMS band would expand into the current choral practice room. The addition would not impact parking.

Additionally, the teacher work rooms on all three levels of the classroom wing would be turned into six offices, which would also operate as small classrooms for counselors and courses like English Language Learning (ELL) and special education. The rooms currently used by those classes would be used to create two new classrooms per floor.

The entire face of Homewood High School would change under HPM’s proposal, which Ellis said could meet the school's needs for the next three decades. The most significant project presented in the community meetings this week was a two-story addition on the north side of the school which would hold a “fine arts pavilion,” “athletics pavilion” and new classrooms.

The fine arts pavilion on the west end of the school would include the relocated and expanded Bailey Theatre, larger dance and choral practice rooms and reorganized space to allow jazz band and percussion practice rooms on the first floor, as well as a larger band practice area on the second floor. There would also be a freight elevator installed to make it easier to transport equipment and instruments from the band room to buses and trailers when traveling.

Cleveland said he also wants to consider upgrading lighting, chairs, flooring and paint in the auditorium.

The sports pavilion, in its current design, would include locker rooms and coach offices on the first floor and training and wrestling rooms on the second floor. Reconfiguration of the practice fields on the north side of the school is being considered, as well as a walking path connecting the sports pavilion to these fields.

In the addition’s center, new classrooms would be built along with a new main entrance. Ellis said some current classrooms would be removed to build the addition or to widen existing hallways, but he said the net gain would be about 16 classrooms.

The addition would be built in the property’s 500-year floodplain, but HPM said part of the high school’s current building is already in that floodplain, so it should not cause a change in insurance rates for the building.

Within the existing HHS building, HPM is proposing removing some of the shelves from the media center to make it better for foot traffic and allow for areas called “collaboration commons” and “learning hubs,” which are based on technology and group-centered learning. Ellis said he imagines more of the media center’s materials being transportable to the classrooms. Other interior updates, including expansion of the kitchen and cafeteria areas into the current Bailey Theatre location, would also be done throughout the building.

Outside the school, HPM has proposed changing traffic patterns so that parents doing drop-off and pickup would only access the campus on the north side at the new front entrance, while students who drive themselves would enter and leave on the south side, where the parking lots and current main entrance are located. Cleveland and Ellis said this would simplify traffic and cause fewer congestion issues, as well as make it safer for students, who will cross fewer active traffic paths.

Cleveland is considering staggering the elementary, middle and high school start times, he said, to create less conflict with Samford University traffic and ideally create an easier drop-off routine for parents with children at multiple schools. The renderings shown by HPM include about 60 new parking spaces, though Ellis said this would not be enough for every sophomore, junior and senior to have a parking spot along with employees.

The proposed design at the high school would house about 1,400 students at maximum capacity.

In addition to the projects at each school, Ellis also proposed an HVAC control system upgrade for the entire HCS system, for better efficiency and control, as well as upgrading and potentially widening the track at Waldrop Stadium. The school system added 14 new teachers this school year, and Cleveland said they expect to add another 14 more by the time the projects at all five schools wrap up.

The school system’s Valley Avenue property was briefly mentioned in the public meeting. Cleveland said when larger refurbishment or replacement projects are needed at Edgewood and Shades Cahaba in 13 to 20 years, the Valley Avenue property could be used as a temporary home for classes to continue during construction. In the meantime, however, he said HCS plans to clean up the property and put in trails on which the middle school cross country team and the  community could walk or run.

In total, the projects are estimated to cost about $33.4 million at the high school, $6 million at the middle school, $11.3 million across the elementary schools, $1.3 million for the HVAC controls system and $1.1 million for the Waldrop Stadium track replacement, as well as $2 million in project management costs. The costs for the projects includes about $2.7 million in contingency costs, Ellis said, to accommodate unforeseen expenses.  Those contingency costs round out the budget to exactly $55 million.

“I have confidence that we can deliver everything you’ve seen in the $55 million,” Ellis said on Oct. 24.

Ellis plans to present the plans and budget to the city council finance committee to review on Nov. 6, with a final vote on Nov. 13. If the plan is approved, HPM would contract with an architecture firm to begin designs that next week. Design, engineering and bidding would largely take place between November and April 2018, with construction starting in earnest after the end of the school year. He admitted the 2018-2019 school year could have some difficulties as classes and construction would be happening side by side, but they would try to contain the work and make it "painless" when possible.

Ellis said their present timeline is to have every project done by the start of the 2019-2020 school year, with the Waldrop track and Homewood Middle School renovations potentially complete earlier.

“We believe that plan is manageable,” Ellis said. “This summer and next school year, there’s going to be a lot of disruption on a lot of school campuses.”

A copy of HPM’s presentation and video of the Oct. 26 meeting will be posted on the Homewood City Schools website on Monday, Oct. 30.