A New Lease on Life

Recycled commercial buildings—from office buildings to malls—provide space-hungry districts with more than just a cheap, quick fix.

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Extreme makeovers are not only sweeping through the world of reality television, they are also serving as alternatives to cash-strapped districts looking to build schools in a matter of months. Rundown malls, abandoned office space, and superstore shells are morphing into classrooms, common areas, and cafeterias, with costs that are significantly less than building from scratch. There are other benefits, too. Retrofitting can revitalize a community, prevent urban sprawl, inspire innovative design, and provide students with new opportunities.

But any old building won't do. An existing structure often requires considerable improvements to meet building codes, which are more rigorous for schools than for commercial spaces. Having deliberated the pros and cons, the three districts profiled here decided to revamp rather than build anew.

BOOKS AND BUSINESS
Village at Indian Hill

District: Pomona (CA) Unified School District
Purchase cost: $5.5 million
Capacity: 1,800 K–6 students; 120 9–12 students
Area: 110,000 square feet
Total cost: $19 million
Completion: September 2001
Architect: Thomas Blurock

Nearly 10 years ago, Pomona Unified School District, strained by a population boom and rising poverty rate, imagined transforming a ramshackle 1957 mall into an educational community. Today the Village at Indian Hill houses an elementary school and a high school academy that sit alongside a conference center, technology training facility, and commercial retail space. “We wanted to bring programs and services to the kids,” says Patrick Leier, the district’s superintendent.

In doing so, the district helped boost business. Until Pomona Unified moved in, the commercial space’s occupancy rate had languished at about 30 percent. Almost immediately afterward, it jumped to more than 90 percent, and sales increased 50 percent. To manage all the stores and nonprofit organizations residing in the mall, the district established the Pomona Valley Educational Foundation. The foundation subsists on income generated from the commercial leases and helps develop educational programs.

This symbiotic partnership between education and business is a work in progress. “We’re looking to develop an educational mall,” says Leier, who wants all of the businesses on the premises to relate directly to education by September. Out will go clothing and jewelry stores and in will come a bookstore that can offer students the resources they need. Organizations such as NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Educator Resource Center and Head Start will remain. “We’re trying to build total synergy,” Leier says.

In repurposing the mall, the school was most concerned with students’ safety. For this reason, walls and independent entrances were created to keep the educational and commercial facilities separate. But the district also had to comply with California’s Field Act requirements, set high for schools to keep them standing during earthquakes. The district worked with the state architect to ascertain the best location in the mall to build the elementary school. As it turned out, the district had to acquire an additional 110,000 square feet of the structure when the architect determined that that space was the most practical to modify. “We had to make sure this was an economically feasible approach, to acquire and adapt this space,” says Leier. “We ended up completing the school in about 18 months and for 80 percent of the cost of a new school.”

FROM SONG TO STUDY
The Center School

District: Seattle (WA) Public Schools
Cost of space: 25-year lease with the City of Seattle
Capacity: 300 high school students
Area: 18,855 square feet
Total cost: $3.6 million
Completion: September 2002
Architect: Bassetti Architects

Around the same time city officials were searching for a site downtown on which to build a small school, the Seattle Opera was clearing out its costume-storage space in the Center House. Recalling that this 8,000-square-foot area was about to become available, the mayor proposed to the district superintendent that a school move in, and, according to legend, the two sketched the idea on a napkin over lunch.

In addition to the initial square footage, the district acquired the adjacent spaces as well, and now classrooms sit on the third and fourth floors of the Center House, a network of shops, eateries, and offices located in the Seattle Center, the city’s home to a number of concert halls, theaters, and museums, as well as the Space Needle.

In conjunction with their curriculum, students may spend afternoons exploring the Pacific Science Center or attending performances at the Eve Alvord Theatre. “The location provides opportunities that these students would not have otherwise,” says Brian Vance, the school’s principal.

Unforeseen complications delayed construction and increased costs. Lorne McConachie, the principal of Bassetti Architects who was responsible for the design, agrees that the cost and time spent total less than what it would have been to build from the ground up, but it wasn’t necessarily easier. “It was a happy idea at the start,” he says, “but we encountered lots of obstacles.” Construction was limited to after hours, often starting at 9 p.m., to avoid disturbing neighboring businesses. Because the structure was built in the ’30s and wasn’t in accordance with modern codes required for schools, the Center School needed seismic upgrades, an improved fire-alarm system, and more extensive exiting pathways.

In its completed state, the Center School still lacks a cafeteria, gymnasium, and library. Students make do with bagged lunches or discounted meals at the Center’s food court, off-campus club sports, and trips to the public library. “It’s a unique challenge, not having certain facilities,” says Vance, “but the opportunities outweigh that.”

CHECK OUT THE SAVINGS
Lehigh Acres Staging School

District: Lee County (FL) School District
Purchase cost: $5.7 million (Lehigh Acres only)
Capacity: 928 students
Area: Just under 100,000 square feet
Projected total cost: $15 million
Projected completion: July 2005
Architect: Schenkel Shultz Architects

Lee County (FL) School District likes a bargain, and it found a great deal in December 2003 when it agreed to purchase two Kmart locations for $9.7 million. The county hopes to save as much as $6 million to retrofit these “big boxes” rather than build entirely new schools. Eventually the sites will permanently house elementary schools, but for their first few years up and running, they will serve as staging schools, which students attend while waiting for their own permanent locations to be built.

The district also purchased the Kmart outposts in hopes that construction would be completed in short order. Schenkel Shultz, the architectural firm responsible for retrofitting the Kmart in Lehigh Acres, plans to complete the project—from design through construction—in nine months, which is less than half the average time it takes to complete an elementary school and about one-third of the time it takes for high schools.

Having completed the design aspect in three months, Schenkel Shultz is in the midst of construction and dealing with the structure’s extensive roof damage. Even after its repair and additional fire-protection work, the project will still show significant cost savings. Dave Torbert, a Schenkel Shultz principal and a member of the American Institute of Architects, says the firm always assesses key elements before undertaking a retrofit to guarantee the feasibility of the project. Designers examine the structure of the building, checking that there’s no asbestos or other environmentally sensitive materials, and evaluate the condition of the HVAC system and the roof. If just one of these components requires improvement, depending on the specifics, the project is still likely to prove financially sound. “It’s when you’re dealing with a couple of these things that you reach the point of diminishing returns,” says Torbert.

Like the Center School, Lehigh Acres will also lack athletic facilities such as a gym or locker rooms. “That is a downside,” says Dean Winder, principal of the new East Lee County High School, which will be Lehigh Acres’ first transient tenant. “But we know it’s not forever. As a temporary facility, this is a great option.”

Jacqueline Heinze is a contributing editor at Scholastic Administr@tor.

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