Dr. Tony Lake, Superintendent of Schools at Lindbergh, shared some additional information with Mayor Mabie regarding the move of their maintenance department to 9400 Watson Road (former Magna Visual building). See previous post on this topic.
In an email from Mayor Mabie to the Board of Alderman, he stated:
According Dr. Lake, there will probably be activity on the site the first quarter of 2020. They are hoping to have everyone mainly moved in and renovations completed by December 2020. The groundbreaking for the high school project will be May or June 2020.
In addition to the high school operations, they will also be moving a print shop from one of the middle schools, and various other non-educational support-type operations from the other middle school, and most of the elementary schools. They expect to have about 50 people employed at the site.
By moving the support/operations activities from each of the schools in the district, they are accomplishing two large goals: 1) adopting best practices from a building security/school safety standpoint; and 2) by freeing up square footage at each of the middle and elementary schools, they can convert that square footage to additional classroom space.
Their current strategic plan has now shifted such that they believe they can absorb the anticipated growth in students in the district over the next 10-15 years at the existing schools without building a 7th elementary school, which was the plan of the previous administration (which would have required a new bond measure, which would have required finding a space in the district for it, etc.).
The building at 9400 Watson is generally structurally sound, but they will be putting about $500,000 in renovations to the exterior and interior, including removing the boards from some of the missing windows, and installing new windows. They want the building to look aesthetically pleasing, especially from Watson Road.
They have no plans to restrict the current traffic flows or divert the apartment traffic from cutting through their lot, and want to be a good neighbor.