Employees will no longer have to traipse up and down a hill between the two buildings at Youth?s Benefit Elementary School now that the school board has decided to demolish the buildings and replace them with a new school.
The plans will not interrupt schooling and will allow administrators, teachers and students to work more efficiently together, officials said.
“The single-building approach is a dream come true, as hard as we work to make our two buildings work as one,” Youth?s Benefit Principal Ellen Tracy said.
The building atop the hill was built in the early 1950s and the second was built in the 1970s. The second has poorly lighted classrooms, but is not as well-built, officials said.
“Youth?s Benefit provided some very unique challenges that became pretty obvious after our first meeting at the school,” architect Jeffrey Ludwig said.
A two-story building will be constructed between where the two single-story buildings are. Then, the building atop the hill will be razed and an attachment will be built from there to the new building below. Finally, the remaining old building will be demolished.
That will satisfy Tracy?s main concern of always having a building available for all students to continue schooling and will save money that would be spent on temporary classrooms, said Kathleen Sanner, supervisor of planning and construction.
The school does not have access to public water and sewer, and the reduction from two septic tanks to one concerned some board members.
The new school will have the same amount of overall space as the two existing schools and will cost about $34 million to build. More detailed interior plans will be drawn up this year, and construction, expected to take
2 1/2 years, can begin soon after.
“We know ahead of time we are going to save energy, not to mention the shoe leather Ms. Tracy puts out going between the buildings,” Sanner said.
