Photo courtesy of Noah Oswald.
Students perform in the Vestavia Hills High School auditorium, a 1,000-seat venue that school officials have proposed renovating.
The Vestavia Hills City Council and city school officials are discussing a potential $18 million project to add new arts and athletics space at Vestavia Hills High School.
The proposal that has been floated by Vestavia Hills schools Superintendent Todd Freeman includes building a new band room in the front of the school and renovating the existing 1,000-seat auditorium and other spaces to get all the fine and performing arts spaces together in the front part of the campus and expand them to accommodate growth in the programs that has occurred over the years.
Photo by Alex Millender.
Vestavia Hills High School’s wrestling program has grown from 80 participants in the 2023-24 school year to 90 this year, with the city’s youth wrestling program adding another 106 students — growth that Superintendent Todd Freeman says the current facility, largely unchanged since the school was built in the 1970s, can no longer accommodate. The proposed $18 million project would add new athletic space at the back of the campus to address the program’s needs.
Also, the proposal includes construction of new athletic space in the back of the school and renovation of some existing spaces to make room for a growing wrestling program, Freeman said.
City officials have been talking about potentially building a performing arts center somewhere in the city for some time, but the high school could provide an opportunity for the city and school system to partner and do something for the arts collectively, Freeman said.
A brand new performing arts center similar to the one at Hoover High School could be built on the campus of Vestavia Hills High School, but Vestavia’s existing auditorium already has adequate seating of about 1,000 seats, Freeman said. Hoover High’s new auditorium seats 940 people.
The current band room and choir room are the same ones that existed when the school originally was built in the 1970s, and the programs have grown in terms of the number of students, Freeman said.
The choir and band rooms at the high school are smaller than the ones at the freshman campus and the middle schools, and that’s a problem, Freeman said.
Similarly, the wrestling space at the high school likely is the same as it was when the school was built, and that program is growing, too, he said.
The high school’s wrestling program grew from 80 students in the 2023-24 school year to 90 this year, he said. The Vestavia Hills Parks and Recreation Department began offering youth wrestling at the high school in the 2024-25 school year, and that program this year grew from 63 to 106 participants and is expected to continue to grow, Freeman said.
“We need a larger space,” Freeman said. “It’s probably the most successful perennial program we’ve had in Vestavia Hills. It is over and over again. A tremendous number of kids participate. We simply don’t have the space.”
Photo courtesy of Noah Oswald.
Vestavia Hills High School’s fine and performing arts programs have grown, prompting a proposal to consolidate theater, choir, dance and band auxiliary groups into an expanded arts wing at the front of the campus. Under a plan presented by Superintendent Todd Freeman, the city and school system could split an estimated $1.26 million in annual debt service payments on the $18 million project over 20 years.
Two of every three students in Vestavia Hills middle and high schools participate in the arts programs, and the numbers are comparable in athletics, Freeman said.
Adding a band room to the front of the high school campus would take up some of the parking lot, but the school just added 55 parking spaces this past year and there is some space in the back of the campus where parking could be added, Freeman said. Class sizes are beginning to decrease, so parking is not a major concern anymore, he said.
The expected cost of the new construction and renovation projects at the high school is $18 million, and if the school system were to borrow money for the project and pay it off over 20 years, the annual debt service payments would be $1.26 million, Freeman said.
His proposal is for the school system to pay $660,000 of that each year and the city cover $600,000 a year. The city already is contributing $280,000 a year to support a 10-year short-term loan the school system took out in 2019 for the conversion of the old Berry High School campus into Pizitz Middle School and addition of athletic space at the Pizitz campus, and that loan will be paid off in a couple of years, Freeman said.
His proposal is for the city to continue its annual appropriation, add $320,000 a year to it and use it to help the school system pay off the high school expansion. Or, alternatively, the city could contribute $6 million upfront and reduce the amount of money that needs to be borrowed, he said.
Vestavia Hills Schools
This map shows proposed additions and renovations at Vestavia Hills High School. The purple area is a proposed new band room, while the light blue area shows proposed renovation areas, including the school’s auditorium. The green area is proposed new construction for athletics, and the orange area is proposed for renovation. Options are still being discussed, but the idea is to create more space for the wrestling program. Map courtesy of Vestavia Hillls Schools.
Freeman presented his idea to the Vestavia Hills City Council publicly in February and in April. City officials were receptive to it but as of mid-May had taken no official action in regard to it.
In February, when the City Council discussed needs across all aspects of the city, the arts and wrestling project at the high school was ranked as the top priority, above infrastructure needs and the upgrade of baseball and softball fields at Liberty Park.
City Manager Jeff Downes noted that city officials programmed more than $9 million in contingency money to cover unexpected capital needs in a potential $34.5 million bond issue that has been discussed.
“Bottom line — with the right math and the right discipline, you can do it all, but you have to be disciplined,” Downes told the council.
Councilman Rusty Weaver said the city has a long history of partnering with the school system.
In addition to helping with the purchase of the former Berry High School campus and relocation of Pizitz Middle School, the City Council in 2024 committed $3.5 million to the school system over three years to help pay for projects in spaces that the two entities share.
The first $1.1 million covered the replacement of artificial turf at Vestavia Hills High School’s Buddy Anderson Field and roadway, drainage and parking improvements at the athletic field at Vestavia Hills Elementary Dolly Ridge.
Last year, money was put into the bathroom and concession improvements at the high school baseball field, and this summer, the gym floors will be replaced at Pizitz Middle School and the Dolly Ridge, East, West and Liberty Park elementary schools.
“If we have an opportunity that we can do within our means and budget, it’s as good as an investment as any departmental investment we could make as a city,” Weaver said.
Councilwoman Kimberly Cook said she believes the community favors the city helping the school system and said school officials have been careful about projects for which they sought funding help.
“I do feel strongly that this is where those dollars should be used,” Cook said. “We’ve never turned down an urgent need of the school system.”
The school system is handling upgrades of things like roofs and air conditioning upgrades as it can find the money, and the city is in a good position to help with program needs such as these for the arts and wrestling, Cook said.
Mayor Ashley Curry said schools are consistently the reason that people move to Vestavia Hills. “We’re not going to lose sight of that,” he said.
Freeman said he realizes the City Council has a wide array of concerns to consider and other pressing financial priorities.
“The idea is to bring you something that can work and not jeopardize all the other conversations you have to have, but can really be something that can be really special for our high school kids,” Freeman said. “The more we can share spaces, the better off we are. The demand for spaces is incredible. It far exceeds what we have, which is a good problem. Any way we can do it together is an advantage for all of us.”
