And the newly available space could be used for parking or green space, he said.

Instead, the old schools would be torn down as students switched to the new buildings. Meanwhile, it's not recommended that the old and new schools that would be built at Beechcroft High School, Mifflin Middle School and Winterset Elementary be used simultaneously, either due to current building conditions or the proximity to the new building. But once those projects are over, the former school would be demolished, he said. “It’s not the same answer for each of the sites,” Trevino said.įor example, Marion-Franklin High School would be used as swing space for future projects once the new school is built on the site, Trevino said. While information on which schools would close as part of the latest phase of the district's facilities master plan has not been released, the future of the existing schools on the construction sites are a bit clearer. 'Specifically, those criteria would not affect the life of the students or the teachers until the project is complete.' Future of the five existing schools 'What we try to do is allocate the sites that would be as shovel-ready as possible,' Dennis Paben, a senior architect at Legat Architects' Columbus office told The Dispatch. The condition of the existing facilities, their location and the ability to use the existing schools as swing space for students as construction on the new buildings is underway were also considerations. The plans detailing the five new schools don't address the consolidation of current schools into the proposed new buildings.Īccording to the proposal, the existing schools would still be in use during the construction of the new buildings, one of four criteria that Chicago-based Legat Architects used to pick the five sites. To achieve that goal, the district would likely close, consolidate and repurpose some schools, but it remains unclear how many schools would be involved or how the district would make those decisions. In February, the district’s facilities master planning committee recommended that Columbus City Schools build six new high schools, six new middle schools and seven elementary schools over the next 20 years.

An elementary school with a student capacity of 600 to be built on the site of Eakin Elementary on the city's Southeast Side.An elementary school with a student capacity of 600 to be built on the site of Winterset Elementary School on the city's Northwest Side.A middle school with a student capacity of 1,000 to be built on the site of Mifflin Middle School on the city's Northeast Side.A high school with a student capacity of 2,000 to be built on the site of Beechcroft High School on the city's Northeast Side.A high school with a student capacity of 1,600 to be built on the site of Marion-Franklin High School and the vacant Beery Middle School on the same lot on the city's South Side.Columbus City Schools: details about the proposed new school buildings 'What I look forward to the most (with the master plan) is shaking things up in terms of how we've handled facilities in the past, and how we can be better, do better moving forward,' Alex Trevino, the district's director of capital development, told The Dispatch.Ĭhicago-based Legat Architects and district officials outlined recommendations for the next segment of the master plan at a recent Neighborhood School Development Partnership (NSDP) committee meeting. The new campuses - two new high schools, one new middle school and two new elementary schools - would be the first of 19 news schools proposed in the district's facilities master plan. Columbus City Schools may get five new schools at a projected cost of $297 million in the next five years.

Columbus city schools closed today