Diocese revises renovations for new Academy middle school

Date: 3/16/2009

By Debbie Gardner

PRIME Editor



SPRINGFIELD -- Grades six, seven and eight of the new St. Michael's Academy will still move into a renovated portion of Cathedral High School next fall.

But the areas of the building selected for renovations to accommodate the new school have been rethought to help control expenses.

"When we got into the design and estimates of what we were planning to do at Cathedral, the cost projections were quite high," Chester Clark, school finance administrator for the Diocese of Springfield, told Reminder Publications.

He said estimates for the original plan, which included converting the high school's science wing into middle school classrooms, reconfiguring part of the heating system, adding a second elevator and building an extensive new entranceway off Wendover Road were "approaching somewhere between $7 and $8 million."

The work, Clark said, is to be done entirely with Diocese funds. There is no capital campaign for the construction involved in creating St. Michael's Academy.

"So, we sat back and took a look, [asking ourselves] 'how can we do what we need to do at significantly lower costs?'" Clark said.

The result was a slightly modified design he called "Plan B."

"We elected not to use the science wing, but the design will continue to use the northwest corridor as was the original plan," Clark said. "In addition, we will now use the west corridor that runs along Wendover Road."

He said the last door on the Wendover Road side of Cathedral will be renovated to both make it handicapped accessible and to indicate it is the new main entrance of the middle school.

Emergency-access-only corridor doors between the high school and middle school portions of the building will be locked, effectively separating the two schools. Exceptions to this separation will be shared use of the school's existing elevator, and cross use of the gymnasium and auditorium areas.

The locked doors meet all fire department regulations, he said.

"When you start looking at all the pieces we cut out [under Plan B] it does two things. It significantly lowers the cost, and it is something we can accomplish before the start of the school year," Clark said.

According to Clark, the new site configuration still provides ample room for classrooms plus allows for the conversion of two existing home economic classrooms into a new middle school cafeteria, and leaves "room for special classes, art, music, etc."

Clark said he didn't have a cost estimate for the revised renovations because "the design work hasn't quite been finalized as to how we're going to use all the rooms."

Mark Dupont, director of communications for the Diocese, said he expects to begin planning update meetings about St. Michael's Academy in the near future.

"We want to bring parents together when we have more information [about programs.] We want to finalize the details about the before- and after-school programs first," he said.

Dupont said that as of the March 9 deadline for early registrations, the Diocese had received 600 applications for grades kindergarten though eight at St. Michael's Academy.

"Approximately 50 of those are new students who put their registrations in during this initial time period," Dupont said. "We see that as a very positive indicator for the future of the school.

"It's already being seen by the broader community as a positive initiative," he added.