Correction:
This article was updated to reflect that eliminating the mezzanine in the school's auditorium will reduce the seating by 250, not 750.
The Kenmore school project is shrinking.
In recent days, Akron Public Schools administrators have embarked on a plan to eliminate most of the project’s estimated $13 million budget shortfall by discarding and reducing material and construction costs.
The project aims to build a new Miller South School for the Visual and Performing Arts and Pfeiffer Elementary in one building on the site of the old Kenmore High School.
On Monday evening, architects from Prime AE, a design firm contracted for the project, and Debra Foulk, the school district’s executive director of Business Affairs, presented the school board’s finance committee with plans that reduce storage space while eliminating 250 seats in an auditorium by dropping the mezzanine level.
The goal is to reduce total project costs by cutting down on the cost per square foot.
The proposed design changes were made after consulting with staff at Miller South and Pfeiffer. The finance committee did not vote on the proposal, but the issue now moves to the full school board for approval.
School officials believe the cuts, coupled with the expected influx of most of the local finance initiative funds from a shared account between APS and the City of Akron, should balance the available budget and its projected cost.
APS Treasurer and CFO Steve Thompson said the district and city will work through issues with the LFI funds with an outside firm in hopes of finding a resolution soon. The inclusion of those dollars means the new school will become a community learning center.
Costs: From $54 million to more than $67 million
Initially, the Kenmore project was planned to be 156,000 square feet at a cost per square foot of $347.15, according to Foulk’s presentation.
That plan would’ve cost $54 million total.
The current layout, with the inclusion of the 250-seat mezzanine, expanded non-traditional classroom spaces and a black box theater, increased the square footage to 169,746 at a per-square-foot cost of $394.84, swelling the expected cost to more than $67 million.
“It doesn’t sound like a lot, but it is when you get into square footage,” Foulk said Monday night of the increase.