Members of the Lisbon School board are encouraging Emergent to move forward with meetings with stakeholders on the redesign of the career and technical education wing of the building following a facility meeting discussion Tuesday, Dec. 20.
A majority of the board highlighted a preference for option 1 of the proposed new weight room, a design that would include a hallway connecting the new room to the lobby outside the district office.
“I think if the only access to the weight room would be from outside or through the Lion’s Den gymnasium, it would add to a number of distractions if the gym was in use,” said board member John Prasil. “I understand we just redid the district office in the last remodel, but putting the hallway in helps mitigate distractions.”
Superintendent Autumn Pino agreed, noting the number of assemblies that are held in the gymnasium that would be disrupted by gym classes or athletes heading to the weight room through the Lion’s den.
“It’s a short-term inconvenience to revamp the flow of district office for this new hallway for a good long-term decision,” Pino said.
The board also liked option 1 because it didn’t impact parking.
Prasil said he wasn’t sure the extra square footage of wrap around to the L shape of the building was needed, noting that if the district were to expand to the south in a future addition, that portion of the weight room would most likely be removed.
“If we do add on somewhere in the future, the south side might be a good place to go to house more classrooms,” Prasil said.
Pino said the decision by Emergent was made to make the addition more pleasing to the eye for those who drive by on Business 30.
The board was also highly in favor of relocating the concession stand, noting that the move made sense and would allow the district to close off portions of the building when only events are happening.
When it came to the development of the science classrooms and career and technical education courses to the east, the board was also in favor.
The middle school science classroom received some discussion.
The new classroom would allow students to do more labs in their own classroom and collaborate with adjacent science teachers.
Pino said that while the classroom and space for the CTE wood shop and metal shop looks small on the designs provided by Emergent, it is far larger than the space Wischmeyer currently has and gives the program room to grow.
The other points of discussion got to the utilities adjacent to the space that might be impacted in construction, including the known grease trap and boiler. The district is currently investigating funding streams that might be used to remove the boiler as part of the construction process as the project will be in that area already.
When it came to the gymnasium floor and turf portions of the project, the district is also going to look to bid those projects as add-ons and potentially bid those items separately if bids do not come in favorably.
Mallie noted that the district had completed the press box and concession stand projects on their own with the help of local volunteers, as opposed to bidding them as part of the original project and saved money on those additions.
The district was not concerned with adding additional storage with the project, as the weight room moving from the old gymnasium will open up potential athletic storage opportunities.
Pino also recommended the board check with Iowa Construction Aided Drafting to get a better cost analysis on the projects outside of Emergent’s numbers.
The board said they would be happy with Emergent continuing discussions with stakeholders again, but not to have the plan changed this time as drastically as it was previously.