The Knox Community School Corporation’s upcoming building project could mean some upgrades for the Weinberg Gym.
School officials have been tweaking plans, in an effort to keep the work under the $20 million budget. Superintendent Dr. William Reichhart says a few ideas related to the gym were shared with the school board Monday.
“There would be brand new bleachers on the lower level of the Weinberg Gym, and that’s to assist our elderly people, as well as our citizens who have handicaps,” Reichhart explains. “We would have new wheelchair access points where they could sit in the bleachers in the wheelchair-designated areas. We also would have handrails going up, and we know that that’s a safety issue for some of our community members and also some of our students.” While the bleachers are out being replaced, school officials also plan to install a new gym floor, according to Reichhart.
He says they’re also exploring the idea of using the parking lot to the south of the gym as the middle school’s pickup and drop-off area. “Students would have to be crossing Culver [Road], but hopefully, the crossing guard can move down there to help us assist with that,” Reichhart says. “That would assist us in separating the car traffic from the bus traffic at the middle school.”
Reichhart says architects with Schmidt Associates are also finalizing the designs for the secure entryways at all three schools, the new elementary school addition, and the new multipurpose room at the high school. The current administrative office would remain, while the rest of the Palmer Wing would be torn down.
Meanwhile, the school board approved another round of resolutions related to the project’s financing. That included a measure authorizing the corporation to sell the elementary school property to a legally-separate building corporation and then lease it back, with the rental fee covering the bond payments.
Board members also agreed to create a separate account for the money raised by transferring the property to the building corporation and to officially appropriate that money. Because the building corporation will be the one actually holding the money to pay for the project, the school board also passed a resolution assigning the construction bids to it. A resolution was also passed authorizing the building corporation to issue bond anticipation notes to help cover some project-related costs before the bonds are actually issued.
Reichhart says construction manager Larson-Danielson reports that the project’s budget remains at $20 million, but that could go up or down once construction bids are received.
