Fort Worth school trustees move toward I.M. Terrell for STEM, arts academies
February 5,2015
Reposted from Fort Worth Business Press
Fort Worth school trustees lined up behind a combined STEM and visual and performing arts high school at the historic I.M. Terrell Elementary School east of downtown Wednesday, with new data showing Terrell can be retrofitted for the two schools within the budget approved by voters in the school district’s 2013 bond election.
Trustees will be scheduled to vote as early as their board meeting Tuesday. A vote for combining the schools at Terrell would reverse a November vote to locate the science, technology, engineering and math academy on Fort Worth’s West Side.
At a workshop Wednesday night, where board members reviewed updated cost estimates on the bond program and moved toward comfort with unexpected hikes in projected costs, President Norm Robbins thanked trustee T.A. Sims for proposing the Terrell idea last year.
“It turned out to be a very fine suggestion, and I thank you for doing that,” Robbins said.
No trustees spoke against the proposal, and they instead turned their attention to ensuring the school’s 200 current elementary students will be moved to a good situation. The bulk of the students live in the nearby Butler public housing project.
“Our children come first,” Dr. Pat Linares, the interim superintendent, said. “Wherever we send them, it is going to be to a place where they get a wonderful education and are loved for the children they are.”
The school that receives the students will be expanded to make room for the children, Linares said.
“I am very pleased” with the board’s move toward Terrell, Sims, whose district includes the school, said during the board’s discussion.
While the school district’s staff and bond program manager, AECOM, raised cost estimates for numerous projects in the bond program, they estimated the visual and performing arts and STEM academies can be done at Terrell for a total $69.5 million - less than the $73.3 million budget voters approved.
Proposition 2 in the bond election was for the two academies, and included a construction budget of $40 million for the arts academy and $12.5 million for the STEM. The proposition did not specify locations for the schools, or say they had to be combined.
“We believe we can do it within the budget without escalation at this point,” Vicki Burris, the school district’s capital projects officer, told board members.
The figures don’t account for a contribution from Fort Worth’s Downtown tax increment finance district, which raises money for infrastructure improvements based on growth in the property tax base. The TIF board last year put $1 million into its project and finance plan to support a public downtown STEM academy.
“We were very encouraged by AECOM’s analysis and the board’s positive reaction to the location and the cost savings,” said Andy Taft, CEO of the Downtown Fort Worth Inc. economic development organization, which administers the TIF. Taft attended Wednesday night’s workshop.
Downtown Fort Worth Inc.’s once-every-10-years rewrite of its strategic plan called a year ago for more educational facilities downtown, and specifically called for the STEM academy as a way to nurture students and foster innovation by linking to downtown’s oil and gas sector and the Near Southside’s hospital district. More schools also improve the appeal of living downtown, the plan said.
The conceptual plan for the combined school would require a variance from the city for parking, and Linares said the district has been working with the city staff on the matter.
Each of the academies would have about 300 students. Pre-STEM and pre-visual and performing arts middle school students would be located at another school.
New construction would include an approximate two to three-story, 66,000-square-foot building for the visual and performing arts that would include a performance hall and a kitchen. It’s too soon to say where the new building would be located, and how it might be connected to the existing building, Rigo Salinas, AECOM regional operations manager, said.
Renovations would be done to the school’s interior, but would not alter its historical features, Salinas said in an interview.
The school district would build an exterior entrance for the I.M. Terrell High School Alumni Association, which has a community room, graduates’ Wall of Fame and cases containing numerous artifacts at the school.
I.M. Terrell opened as a high school and was later closed, then re-opened as an elementary. The school district has renovated it, and the building is in good shape, but under-used by the elementary. Alumni liked the idea of a revitalized school, but they worried they’d lose their space and the history and the displaced elementary students wouldn't have a good place to move, and a group attended Wednesday’s workshop.
"They've put a lot of money in here; this building is ideal," James Mallard, president of the alumni association, said after the association met Tuesday night in the school. Wednesday night, the alumni leaders said they were satisfied the school district plan would preserve the history.
The new data on the entire bond program, which trustees had demanded of AECOM last month, assumed costs will escalate at between 8 and 12 percent per year.
The district would put off “life cycle” upgrades, restroom updates, plumbing upgrades, and new auditorium seating until the end of the bond program. Any leftover money would be allocated to those projects.
At 8 percent per year, and assuming projects remain on schedule, the new construction budget would be $315.7 million for the entire program, AECOM and the school district staff estimated.
That compares to the original $284.9 million construction budget. The district would make up the difference out of $33.6 million in contingency funds in the bond program, leaving $2.8 million for other projects at the end of the program.
At 12 percent per year, the total construction budget would be $322.9 million, if the program remained on schedule, AECOM and the staff estimated. That would drain the contingency for other projects.
“The reality is in between these two,” Salinas said in the interview.
Linares asked the board to move in behind the new plan and promised regular updates. “The longer we wait the more cost we count in our escalation,” she said.
Scott Nishimura
snishimura@bizpress.net