A new design for renovations to North Penn High School is now taking shape.
School board members got their first look at that new design and how it incorporates parts of a plan voted down by voters earlier this year.
“We now know that we must keep the spending within the Act 1 index, in order to do our upgrades and renovations to the building itself,” said Superintendent Todd Bauer.
“All the research that we shared, all the concepts and suggestions and feedback we received from our community, it’s all still true. We will just not be moving ninth grade to the high school,” he said.
On Jan. 16 voters vetoed a referendum question asking taxpayers to authorize $97 million in borrowing, above and beyond the Act 1 index set by the state for an annual tax increase allowed this year, which would have funded a roughly $403 million renovation and expansion of the current high school to move roughly 1,000 ninth grade students there from the district’s three middle schools.
Since that vote, staff and the district’s architect have said they’re working on refining the design to largely maintain the 1970s-era existing building, its footprint and campus configuration, while modernizing the school’s utilities, and have said a new site for the district’s transportation facilities will be needed before any construction, while voting ahead requests for several subcontracts to study conditions underground and above the ceilings of the current school.
Bauer and architect David Schrader unveiled that latest design on Monday night, showing several changes from earlier versions of the plans: most notably, temporary modular classrooms near the transportation site could wind up not being temporary.
“We are exploring the concept of permanent construction, rather than modular construction. If we were to move forward with that, what would be the cost? For example, perhaps we could add classroom spaces to the tune of $20 million to $25 million, as opposed to $15 million for modulars,” Bauer said.
“All of the things you are going to hear are proposals that we are exploring,” he said.
As they spoke, Bauer and Schrader showed a series of concept plans, with the current L-shaped school outlined in black and white, and several possible additions highlighted in red. Smaller additions could be added near the school’s current band room and J-pod to make those areas more accessible, the architect told the board, and the corridors connecting the school’s various pods could be widened, while the new addition for classroom space could use part of the current parking lots near the transportation center, and connect two opposite wings of the school’s A-pod and H-pod while the other pods are renovated.
“That connection creates an actual courtyard between all of the other pods, and starts to give you a true circulation route, and almost a square racetrack-type pattern, a little bit like what we were talking about originally,” Schrader said.
“The idea here is, you take those 20-plus classrooms that were in the original phasing, the modulars, and you instead build those as part of the construction, get those done, and that allows you to use those spaces, and now phase and stage yourself around the building,” he said.
The current school has roughly 7,500 square feet of training and fitness space above the main gym area that is not accessible by current ADA standards, the architect told the committee, so moving that athletic space to a new ground-level addition could make those facilities available to more students, while using the upstairs space for mechanical and HVAC needs instead. The current transportation site would still largely be converted into athletic fields and parking, but parts of the new addition could mean that parking needs to be reconfigured, and could be modified to add more green space around the new wing.
A new bus loop has also been added in the latest plan, diverting school buses from the Valley Forge Road entrance toward Snyder Road to keep those buses separate from student and parent drivers, and the new wing could also feature a new main entrance to reduce congestion and improve traffic flow for both pedestrians and drivers. Interior spaces that currently exist, such as the school’s B-pod where food services are located now, could be modernized with larger windows and wider hallways, to give students more space to walk and more daylight in classrooms.
“As we’ve talked about all along, the whole building would get brand new mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems, and those last for the next 20 to 50 years, depending on which system,” Schrader said.
“All of the finishes would be redone, in the building, so the whole interior of the building would feel like a new building inside: that’s floors, ceilings, walls, et cetera,” he said.
A colorized site plan shows details, with blue colors showing existing classroom spaces that would largely be unaltered, purple colors for performing arts space including a new addition, green color showing athletic and natatorium spaces, and orange indicating the new additions. To create access to the second floor, a new stairway could be added near the entrance to the 1990s-era K-pod that now serves as the school’s front entrance, and new elevators could be added in the new wing at the rear of the school, and near the performing arts addition, so students or staff with mobility issues would have more potions to travel throughout the school.
“One of our ideas for trying to reduce the traffic in the floors, is to actually take students who are coming into the building from either the bus circulation loop, or from the front lobby, and add this nice, wide stairway here, to bring half of the population up onto the second floor before they even get into the corridor areas,” Schrader said.
Adding the new wing would also fully enclose the central courtyard of the school, so students could cut across the open space if weather permits. In the classroom spaces, the architect showed the board, current stonework that leaks and 1970s-era windows could be replaced with larger windows and more modern materials, and the district’s construction management consultant is currently developing cost estimates for each portion of the plans, the architect said.
School board President Tina Stoll said she was glad to see the window upgrades for existing classrooms remained in the latest plan: “I went to North Penn, and I never liked the smaller windows, or the windows that don’t open, so I’m really glad about the windows.”
She then asked about an option discussed during tours of the school ahead of the referendum last fall: whether new HVAC equipment could be moved from the ground floor to the second floor or ceilings to free up space, if new units are smaller and more efficient than older hardware. Schrader said the current plans have the same mechanical spaces, but his team is considering concepts where single rooms in each pod are converted to mechanical space, so those pods could be returned to service after renovations faster than if connections had to be made to centralized HVAC systems elsewhere in the school.
Stoll then asked about lockers for students, and if removing lockers from the hallways could widen those spaces for students to walk; Schrader said that idea is “definitely in the works,” and could improve circulation throughout the building. Superintendent Todd Bauer asked for an update on the high school’s mid-2000s-era natatorium, parts of which have needed repairs in recent years, and Schrader said the original plans had “pretty minimal” repairs to that area, but the architect is now doing a full study of the swimming spaces, and could recommend “quite a bit of renovation” there.
Committee chairwoman Cathy McMurtrie then asked for square footage figures, and Schrader said the total new space that would be added near J-pod, performing arts, and the new rear addition would add up to “somewhere around 100,000 square feet,” which would bring the school to a total of “in the neighborhood of 620,000 square feet,” close to the amount determined by staff and the architect as they planned the programs they want at the updated school. Bauer added emphasis that the latest version is just a suggestion, for now, meant to field feedback.
“This is really us trying to check off all the boxes (from the pre-referendum plan), in a more concise way, without ninth graders, without a 220,000 square foot addition. This is 100,000 square feet of addition, rather than 30,000 square feet of modulars. And if we were to do all of the things we threw out there at the beginning, this is what it could look like,” Bauer said.
“I don’t believe that this will be the end design. I don’t believe that it will all be feasible. But in an effort to be as transparent, and give updates to the community, and to the board, trying to put out there all of the things being discussed, we will continue to get feedback,” he said.
Regarding a timeline, Schrader said his team is working with the project construction manager to develop revised cost estimates by the end of April, could finish the design process by fall 2024, then start meeting with Towamencin Township’s planning commission and supervisors and county officials for needed permits and approvals in late summer through fall.
“If all of that comes to fruition, that puts you in a position to do your bidding process in the spring of 2025, a year from now, which would allow you to begin using your summers for the opportunity to construct as much as possible,” he said.
North Penn’s school board next meets at 7 p.m. on April 8 and the facilities and operations committee next meets at 7 p.m. on April 29; for more information visit www.NPenn.org.
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