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WILKES-BARRE — If the original drawings for a new consolidated high school on Washington Street looked cramped — and one complaint was the lack of space in the intended site of less than 3 acres — architectural drawings of the school in a new, 78-acre site in Plains Township are the exact opposite: The sprawling building looks like the definition of capacious.
The school board wants to consolidate grades 9-12 at Meyers and Coughlin into one new building, and originally decided to raze Coughlin and put the new school there. The first drawings of the building planned on that site were made public in January 2016 and showed a a four-story structure stretching from where the Coughlin gym is now to Union Street, eliminating a grassy field. There was no real space outside of the school walls.
That plan was scuttled when the Wilkes-Barre Zoning Hearing Board denied a needed permit, and the school board looked elsewhere, ultimately settling on nearly 80 acres in Plains Township.
The new drawings for a school on that site show a sprawling building, much of it only two stories, overlooking the Wyoming Valley and sporting four circular driveways, two depicted being used for school bus drop-offs and pick-ups.
The board voted March 5 to purchase the land for $4.25 million. Solicitor Ray Wendolowski said Tuesday that details of the contract are still being worked out, but predicted a contract will be available for the board to vote on at its next meeting April 9.
The project is being handled by the district “design team” comprised of four area firms: A&E Group, Borton Lawson, WKL Architecture and Leonard Engineering. Apollo Group Inc. is also involved as the district’s contracted construction manager.
Critics have frequently argued millions have been wasted by having the team draw up plans for the Washington Street building only to scrap that site after failing to get the zoning variance.
But Wendolowski repeated the board’s counterclaim: Much of the original design will be reused in the new site, such as common areas like the gym, cafeteria and auditorium, and the overall plan for number and types of classrooms and other space remains the same.
Wendolowski also pointed out that, as is typical in these projects, the design team will be paid a percentage of the total construction cost. And when the site was changed, the team agreed to reduce that percentage.
A new contract with the design team was approved last September. The four firms had been receiving more than 5 percent of construction costs. The new contract lowers that to 4.3 percent if construction costs run between $60 million and $90 million, and 4.2 percent if it is between $95 million and $105 million.
