With clock ticking, Berry overhaul, other facilities projects come into focus

In 24 months, the Vestavia Hills City School system should look entirely different.

In fall of 2019, the district plans to move into the former Berry campus, pull the ninth-graders out of the high school and move Central elementary students to the Pizitz campus.

But in the meantime, there are nearly innumerable decisions to be made ― everything from furnishings to school and building names. There are also dozens of projects going on at the schools that will not be moving, and continued monitoring of the changing demographics and enrollment projections.

“We’re thinking quickly, but not hastily,” Superintendent Sheila Phillips said.

Working with Lathan & Associates, Hoar Program Management and Cooperative Strategies ― the team of professionals the board of education hired over the last few years to handle the growing number of projects in the district ― Phillips said the board and administrators are working to carefully and methodically make decisions about each facility, but that there is no room to dawdle.

The time crunch, discussed at multiple meetings throughout the spring, stems not only from the finite terms of the $69.9 million bond issuance the BOE took out in Sept. 2016, but also by the expectation that growth will continue, and with it the resulting capacity issues.

Berry’s transformation

Arguably the largest aspect of the facilities overhaul will be the upgrades and adjustments made to the former Berry High School campus.

Early estimates put the cost of the project around $20 million, but Phillips said the alternative ― building a new school ― would far exceed that cost, and there is also the issue of where else a school could have even gone.

“There’s just not a lot of property to deal with the issues of growth that we’ve had,” Phillips said.

Most of what will be done to the Berry campus will be cosmetic, Phillips said, because the bones of the building are structurally sound and strong.

“We see an old rundown building, but structurally it’s one of the reasons why it was worth the purchase, because structurally this building is in great shape,” she said.

Much of the current plans include opening up spaces so that they can be utilized more efficiently.

For example, Phillips said, one interior corridor where ramps currently fill the space could be turned into an open-concept and shareable education space, flowing into the media center or incorporating technology for a nontraditional classroom dynamic.

“Based on efficiency, safety and security concerns, functionality on a daily basis ... those would be probably the most significant changes people would see,” she said.

Only one building, a rear gym and set of classroom corridors, will have to be torn down. That space, Phillips said, is one of the places that a new wing for ninth-graders could go.

However, Phillips stressed that just because spaces at Berry have been one thing in the past does not mean that the new school will be set up the same way.

Further, even if aspects of a school like counseling or science labs have been set up in a certain way at Pizitz, she said the team does not want to rule out exploring new ways of doing things. “There’s a lot of thought going into making certain we create a space based on the needs,” she said.

Over the next few months, Phillips said HPM and Lathan will be working to further pin down exactly what changes to the buildings need to be made, and how the school will be set up to house grades sixth through ninth.

Phillips said the district needs to have plans for the renovation submitted to the state by Thanksgiving to remain on target for a fall 2019 completion date.

By the end of the 2017-18 school year, Phillips said, the goal is to have many of the other issues — such as how ninth grade students will be transported to the high school for athletics, band and other activities ― further determined.

“We have to have all of that decided by the end of the school year,” she said.

Then, during the 2018-19 school year, not only will dirt be moving and the construction ongoing, but Phillips said administrators and teachers will be preparing to make the transition as smooth as possible.

Phillips said the board will also be giving the city a seat at the table when it comes to discussion about athletic facilities, so that all needs are considered.

Other projects

In addition to Berry, nearly half of the campuses in the district will be going through some kind of change over the next several months to next year.

Vestavia Hills Elementary Cahaba Heights formally unveiled its new gymnasium to the public in July and will be fully utilizing its new cafeteria space when school starts.

The second phase of the Cahaba Heights improvements also began construction over the summer, with the old gym being torn down and an agreement being reached between the BOE and the city for a land conveyance. The new classrooms spaces will be constructed over the next year, and are scheduled to be completed in July 2018.

Construction at Vestavia Hills Elementary West has faced a few bumps in the road, with the project needing to be redesigned to better fit on BOE property. In June, the BOE approved a new contract for the project, which is now estimated to cost $5.4 million, a little less than the original bid. The construction on the new cafeteria and kitchen was slated to start just before school begins, with HPM Project Manager Brennan Bell telling the BOE that crews hoped to have a lot of the most disruptive work done before students returned.

At Vestavia Hills Elementary East, the late summer months had the new cafeteria and kitchen getting a roof and much of the exterior nearing completion. Bell told the BOE that the project was moving along on schedule.

Additionally, Phillips said Cooperative Strategies and HPM will continue to look at enrollment data and the continuing demographic study to get an even more detailed picture of what the district will continue to look like.

And that information, she said, is what will drive all of the projects.

“They’ll take all of that information and they’ll begin putting these pieces together,” Phillips said.

Information about each Vestavia Hills City Schools facility can be found at vestavia.k12.al.us/facilities.