It’s official: high school land purchased
Community school also expanding
By TRAVIS PURSER
Express Staff Writer
If Jim Lewis, superintendent of the Blaine Count School
District, appeared relieved last week, it was for good reason.
After the district’s successful campaign last year to
get a $40 million tax levy passed for school construction projects, the
public watched while the district struggled to acquire land for its first
major project, a new, 160,000-square-foot high school.
Friday morning, Lewis, district employees and Boise
architect Dave Davies announced the district had finally purchased 11.7
acres adjacent to the existing Wood River High School from landowners
Stoney Burke and Fred Judd. The district purchased another adjacent 3.5
acres from Hailey landowner LaRue Tingey, bringing the district’s land
holdings in that area to 52 acres.
The purchase allows the district to stay on schedule for a
planned opening for the 2003-2004 school year.
Plans call for the new 1,000- to 1,200-student high school
to be built about 70 feet north of Wood River High School, a building
where nearly all the district’s high school students are enrolled.
The arrangement would create a "campus
situation," Lewis said, that would benefit students walking between
the new building and the existing building, which the district plans to
convert into a community center shared by the district, the College of
Southern Idaho and the Blaine County Recreation District.
The buildings’ proximity would also allow students at
the new school to use the old school’s auditorium and attend academies
at the old school. Academies provide students with real-world experience
in a variety of occupations.
The existing high school’s football field would be moved
north to make room for construction. Plans call for additional practice
fields to be constructed northwest of the new school. Tennis courts,
something the existing high school does not have, are also in the works.
Drawings call for parking to be divided into three
sections of about 100 cars each, to avoid creating a "sea of
parking," Lewis said.
During special events, the new fields may be also used for
parking to prevent people from leaving their cars along the adjacent Fox
Acres Road.
"We tried to take community concerns into
consideration," Lewis said, not only with parking, but by planning to
leave open space adjacent to Deerfield and by not planning a back entry to
the new school from Deerfield.
Plans for the actual building are still in the conceptual
stage. No architectural drawings exist yet, but district planners are
working with Boise architect Dave Davies to create a food court, media
center, office space, classrooms and a gymnasium.
Lewis said district planners are considering soliciting
donations to build a civic auditorium on the campus to be shared by the
public and the school. That arrangement would allow the district and the
community to share costs.
Schematic designs and exterior elevations of the building
may be available in April.
Construction, projected to take 17 months, may begin this
year after the football season ends or as early as this summer.
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The Community School, a private school in Sun Valley with
kindergarten through 12th grades, also has begun planning an expansion to
the nearby Sagewillow property in Elkhorn.
School spokeswoman Gina Poole said Tuesday the school has
hired a civil engineer as project manager.
She said the school would like to move its
pre-kindergarten through 5th grade classes to the new location, which
would create room for a new science and technology facility at the
existing Trail Creek location.
Poole said plans call for the expansion to be completed
for a 2003 school year opening.
The proposed building arrangement would
create a "campus situation," superintendent Jim Lewis said,
which would benefit students walking between the new building and the
existing building. The district plans to convert the old school into a
community center shared by the district, the College of Southern Idaho and
the Blaine County Recreation District.
