Springfield School District

A Million-Dollar Idea!

Please enjoy the attached conceptual photos.  They are renderings of the current design of the new school.  One cannot help but notice they are much different than the conceptual renderings published during the bond election campaign. These photos are the result of a million-dollar idea!

During the interviews to select an architect firm, our current architect, TreanorHL indicated concerns about our phasing plan that would displace students from classrooms and they felt they had a more cost effective plan. This was largely why we chose TreanorHL.  In addition, TreanorHL has completed over 50 schools with BEST Grants and stayed within budget on every one.

The TreanorHL plan accomplishes the following:

1.       The project will be completed in 3-4 phases rather than 6. (This is the million-dollar idea)

2.       Use the savings to enhance the remodel of the existing high school to give it the feel of a new building.

3.       Additionally, upgrade the new gymnasium plan to make it an ADA accessible competition gym.

Our consultant, John Sattler from DCS, has called this a million-dollar idea. By reducing the phasing of the project, we could possibly have up to an additional million dollars to put into our building – money that would have been spent on establishing a safe perimeter for each of the 6 phases in our original plan. Naturally the design committee – made up of staff, parents, administrators, and board members; wanted to stretch our grant as far as possible, and decided to go with the more efficient plan from TreanorHL. 

This decision has consequences, that required a shift in our solution to the problems that led to us being selected for the grant.   The new construction will be a high school/middle school building. The remodeled high school will become the pk-5 building, and TreanorHL has a design plan that will effectively make the current building feel new once finished.  This current design will allow for a better student experience.  Students will start in a smaller, safer space with the vision of transitioning to the larger building as High School Students.  This is the vision of Principal Architect Chad Novak and Stephanie Grose the lead design architect on our project.

There are 2 things that will not change during the course of our project.  Our student count determines the overall area of our school, and our overall budget will not change. The million-dollar idea might seem too good to be true, but the professionals at TreanorHL assure us it is within the budget.  Our consultants at DCS agree this idea will make our project more efficient and they also concur that it will remain within budget.  We have also reviewed the changes with Cheryl Honigsberg, our area BEST grant representative with CDE, and she concurs it is a cost saving measure, and her job is to mandate the project stays within budget. We feel that we are in good hands with this project, and we are excited to share these conceptual renderings of our future school with the public.