An architecture and engineering firm with offices in Akron is the top choice to design the combined Miller South School for the Visual and Performing Arts and Pfeiffer Elementary School, the Akron Board of Education agreed Monday. The new building will be constructed on the site of the former Kenmore High School.
Prime AE was the top-ranked professional design firm of seven that responded to a request for proposals to be the architect for the combined elementary and middle school.
“We’re excited about the opportunity; we’re very excited,” said Dana Mitchell, a Prime AE senior vice president, architecture and engineering. “We’re super excited. I smiled all night.”
The school board authorized a committee that consists of the district’s CFO/treasurer, chief of staff, chief diversity officer and others to begin negotiating a contract for Prime AE to design the school. If the groups aren’t able to come to an agreement, negotiations will move to Moody Nolan, then SSOE, then Hasenstab Architects, which are the next-ranked options.
The firms were ranked based on their experience designing performing arts centers, their location relative to Akron, and nearly another dozen other factors, said Todd Harpst, an attorney with Harpst Becker representing the district through the process. He said over the course of the next month it should be clear if the groups can negotiate an agreement for Prime AE to move forward with the work.
Community feedback on design is important
If so, the board will approve the final agreement and a community engagement campaign regarding plans for the new school will begin.
“We want to make sure all those expectations are met,” Harpst told the board.
Mitchell said it’s “very premature” to say what the project would look like. He also said Prime AE had designed a Tallmadge school that committee members visited as they considered what they might want out of a combined Miller South/Pfeiffer.
Getting feedback about what people want from the school is “not rocket science,” Mitchell said.
“It is listening to the community members,” he said.
The firm is currently finishing some projects for the Pro Football Hall of Fame Village in Canton, specifically the hotel and waterpark. Mitchell said it is also completing the Ed Davis and Patterson Park community centers in Akron and just bid on the Reservoir Park Community Center in the city.
For the school building, Prime AE will partner with Columbus-based Triad Architects, where Mitchell’s daughter works. He said the team was diverse in terms of age, race and gender and “very reflective of the community.”
The school board will also decide on a construction manager for the project through a similar ranking process, said Debra Foulk, the executive director of business affairs for Akron Public Schools.
The board decided last year to pay for the new school with a $40 million certificate of participation, essentially an annual payment subject to budget appropriation that does not have to be approved by voters. The school board is in discussions about the possibility of asking voters to approve a bond levy this fall for the construction of a new North High School as well. The estimate for that project is $85 million.
The distinction didn’t sit well for Gregory Harrison, pastor at Antioch Baptist Church, who said the board was treating the two school populations differently. The student population of North High School has grown in recent years as more immigrant families have settled in the North Hill area.
“What’s important to you, you pay for,” he said, referring to Miller South and Pfeiffer. “You pay for what you want and beg for what you need.”
To ask the community to approve a levy for the construction of North High School but sign a private agreement for the combined middle and elementary school is “unconscionable,” he said.
Expanding communications staff
The school board also agreed in a 4-2 vote to approve three job descriptions that would expand the district’s communications staff next year. Superintendent Michael Robinson said the district needed more internal support to define and brand itself.
“We want to tell our own story and we want to tell it proudly and we want to tell it accurately,” he said. “We are a business, and we have to conduct ourselves as one. To recruit and attract scholars, we have to act like we want that.”
Fifteen years ago, Robinson said, the communications staff had eight employees. Now, no more than two people are responsible for web design, internal communications, media relations, videography and other communications work, he said.
There are no salary details available for the three job descriptions board members approved Monday. They’re an assistant director of communications, a video-digital media production specialist and a communications and multimedia specialist. Currently, the district has a communications director, Mark Williamson.
APS has to restructure, Robinson said, to be able to compete. He said at a time when the district has to make as much as $20 million in cuts next year, the jobs would “not necessarily” be new positions.
“Certainly, we’re not trying to implode the budget,” he said. “We have to make sure our priorities are part of the budget.”
Carla Jackson, vice president of the school board, and Rene Molenaur, a board member, expressed reservations about approving job descriptions for new positions without knowing their cost. They voted against the proposal.
Reviewing superintendent, treasurer
Board members also agreed in a 5-1 vote to remove the goal-setting portion of the superintendent and treasurer’s reviews from the agenda. They voted after going into executive session.
Board President Diana Autry said setting goals and objectives for the board’s two employees would be part of their whole evaluation, done at the end of the school year, instead of parceled out separately. She said the goal-setting had already been done.
Job Perry, a member of the board, voted against the decision but declined to elaborate on his reasoning for objecting to the change.
