Plans for Annandale’s new elementary school are starting to take shape.
On Monday, July 25, at the Annandale school board’s regular meeting, GLT Architects presented a draft of a design they will seek approval on in August.
The community could see action out on the site as early as late September.
By Thanksgiving, they hope to have the site level, the soil corrected and the utilities relocated, making it ready to start laying the footings come spring, Supt. Steve Niklaus said.
"The draft may be tweaked a little bit," he said of the design, "but really this accomplishes what we wanted done."
The design
Highlights of the design include a separate parking and drop-off area for cars and buses.
The main parking lot will be where the current Bendix is now with the school positioned just south of it.
The buses will come in from the east, drop the students off on the south side of the school and exit onto Poplar Ave.
The main entrance will be on the north side by the parking lot.
Both the school and the community education portion of the building will have their own secure entrances.
Elementary school
The main entrance of the elementary school will open into a high-ceilinged cafeteria/commons area.
Next to that, at the heart of the building, will be the media center.
"The media center is going to be beautiful," said Bendix teacher McLain Westman who was part of the committee that helped to make the design.
"When people walk in, they are going to see a really nice school."
Three two-story classroom wings will face west with space for additional classrooms if enrollment either increases or decreases significantly.
According to Niklaus, if enrollment dropped drastically, the middle school could be abandoned to reduce costs and the students divided into the new elementary and high school.
Community education
In this design, Annandale Community Education is located on the east side of the school.
Connected, but still a separate entity with its own secure entrance, it will serve pre-school students during the day, offer school-aged childcare before and after school, plus day and night classes for adults.
With the gym just down the hallway, aerobic, martial arts and other classes will now be an option for the community, Niklaus said.
"I’m really excited for the community education piece," Annandale/Maple Lake Community Education Director Nicole Wilke said Monday night.
"We’ll be able to lock the school down at night and still have space open for night classes. It will be a convenient, one-stop place for parents."
The gym could also be used for recreational activities if say, someone wanted to start a community basketball or volleyball league, Niklaus said.
Those activities would all be arranged through the community education office.
"We want to make sure the gym and rec. space is used day and night," he said.
This design also preserves the Cardinal Kingdom playground and includes space east of the parking lot to replace ball fields lost during construction, Niklaus said.
The future
Looking toward the future, the design also includes some energy saving attributes, such as daylighting and geo thermal heat that could save the district money in the long run.
According to David Leapaldt of GLT Architects, Geo thermal heating could save the school seven to 12 percent on its energy costs and 10 to 15 percent on its energy use.
Whether geo thermal heat will be used now depends on the suitability of the soil on the site, he said.
Daylighting on the other hand, simply makes use of natural, outdoor light instead of electricity.
Sensors would kick on artificial lights on particularily cloudy days, Leapaldt said.
Glitches
Meanwhile, architects have found their first glitch of the project, and they found it in the ground.
According Leapaldt, while the soil at the site is suitable for building, it’s not compacted enough to support the load they want to put on it.
So the first step this fall will be to stabilize the soil by driving stones into the ground to compact it.
They came across another problem when they discovered that the water table was higher than they first thought.
Leapaldt doesn’t think either issue will slow the construction process significantly or push back the completion goal of the fall of 2013.
"Projects like this are never just smooth sailing," he told the board Monday night. "It’s like a really good novel. As soon as we get some resolution, we get another twist, but like any good novel, it will have a good ending."
What’s next
The next steps will be to refine the design and get approval from the board to move forward with it.
Once the school board is sure of the direction they want to go in, they will hold a community meeting for people to review and react to the design before bidding it out, Niklaus said.
Leapaldt expected to start seeking bids by late September.
In other news, board members:
– Approved posting calls for bids for the new elementary school construction on the website in addition or as an alternative to the newspaper.
According to Niklaus, school districts in Minnesota now have the option of posting calls for bids on their websites or through industry trade journals as an alternative to newspaper publication.
Using the website is free, business administrator Rick Pullen said, unlike paying for an ad in the paper.
After some discussion the board agreed it would be beneficial in cases where the work requires a specialized contractor to put the call for bids in a trade journal or send it directly to the contractor, Niklaus said.
It is likely the school would put a call for bids on both their website and in the local papers, chairman Mike Dougherty said.
"Approval of this just gives us the option of advertising on the web. We don’t have to do it, or we could do both," Dougherty said.
– Denied a request by the All Night Graduation Party Committee to hold a walk-a-thon fundraiser that would take students away from classes during the school day.
– Closed the meeting to discuss the school district’s position for contract negotiations with employee bargaining units.
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