For a 61-year-old school, Auburn High seems to be in good shape.
But looks aren’t everything.
Peel back the skin, district officials say, and you’d find infrastructure long past its prime, leaking roofs, outdated fire suppression facilities and a heating, cooling and ventilation system dating to the Truman administration.
The upshot — students left shivering in cold classrooms, as happens all too often when the old boiler goes on the fritz.
Keeping the aging school going eats up too much money, too, District Superintendent Kip Herren recently told the Auburn City Council. Electricity alone adds up to $75,000 yearly, compared to an average of $21,000 at the district’s other high schools.
Indeed, keeping AHS going costs the district about $250,000 more per year than those other schools do.
“People don’t know,” Herren said, “that Auburn High School is falling apart on the inside. … The bones weren’t built to go over 60 years old.”
The Auburn School District Board of Directors, keenly aware of the issues, last fall approved putting before voters Tuesday an Auburn High School modernization and reconstruction bond, packaged with an educational programs and operations replacement levy.
The bond proposal asks for $110 million. Money from the bond sale, added to $10 million from the school district’s Capital Projects Fund, would pay for the project. What’s more, Herren said, the state of Washington would kick in a $25 million match for reconstruction.
Plans show the construction footprint extending north from East Main over today’s tennis courts and parking lot toward the Performing Arts Center. Accordingly, all community activities — ball park, pool, gym, the PAC and the stadium — would be clustered on the north side of the campus.
Buses would enter from East Main Street and load or unload entirely on campus, a safety improvement over the traffic that today spills onto 4th Street today, tying up traffic and endangering lives, Herren said.
Plans call for the PAC to get a new lobby, facing 4th Street. The lobby would provide handicapped access to the top floor, the stage and the upstairs bathrooms. All of the school’s music programs would be tied to the PAC.
The three-story, red brick school would be set 100 feet back from East Main, with a library looking out on Mount Rainier.
One benefit to rebuilding and not remodeling, Herren said, is that students could stay at the current school during the construction period. By contrast, a remodeling of the present high school would take two years, and the district would need to move all of the the students to other schools during that period.
Ultimately the district would level the old high school, replacing it with a 600-stall parking lot, 300 more than today. Without the high school in the way of the PAC, as it is now, Herren said, people coming for a performance could spot the building more easily.
If voters approve the bond issue, construction would start in 2013 and end in 2015.
Herren said the district, recognizing that to many of its students the school is “hallowed ground,” has designated 137 legacy items — lamps, bricks, etc., and these would be on display at the new school.
A $239 million bond measure, which would have funded not only a new high school but upgrades at Olympic Middle School, Terminal Park and Pioneer elementaries, failed in 2008, just as the economy crashed. This time, the bond references only new high school construction.
“The time is now,” Herren said, “because Auburn High School is in bad shape. It’s costing us big dollars, almost half a million dollars a year in additional maintenance to keep the boilers going and to keep the infrastructure going … Another good reason is that the bond market is the lowest its been since the Eisenhower era. Construction costs are also estimated to be at the best place for bids.”
The four-year replacement levy would maintain current educational programs and services for all children including small class size, instructional programs, special education, athletics and activities, transportation, and maintenance and custodial services. This replacement levy is not a new tax. It replaces the expiring 2008 levy and is required to maintain current instructional programs and services.
“First off, it’s a a replacement levy, it’s not a new tax,” said Herren.
Herren said the combined passage of the levy and bond would result in level school taxes for the average homeowner in Auburn. He said the modernization and reconstruction bond would fund critical improvements at AHS while keeping school taxes level.
Auburn High has been expanded five times since its construction in 1950.
Over the past 10 years, the school district has established a surplus in the Capital Projects Fund through careful management of its building construction program. The surplus funds will be used to help finance the Auburn High School project and will ultimately reduce the tax impact on citizens.
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Plan for Auburn High School
The modernized and reconstructed Auburn High School would:
• Replace all of the buildings on campus except for the PAC (Performing Arts Center) and Auto Shop.The PAC, Auto Shop and grounds will be modernized.
• The new facility will be similar in size and student capacity to the current school.
• The building will be brick with a classic and timeless appearance.
• Offer a front entry on East Main Street, no longer on 4th Street.
• Be built at its current location in phases so students can safely remain on campus during the project.
• Improve heating, cooling and ventilation.
• Include seismic upgrades.
• Be under one roof with two points of entry, instead of 81, which is now the case.
• Increase student safety.
• Have off-street bus loading areas.
• Provide new classrooms and building technology.
• Increase on-site parking from 300 to 600 stalls.
• Include a large student commons and new synthetic turf baseball and softball fields.
• Improve access for the disabled.
• Include a large parking lot adjacent to the PAC, pool and main gym directly across from Auburn Memorial Stadium.
