By Rose Laudicina
Staff Writer
The Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools district is breaking ground on a new elementary school that it hopes will help alleviate its overcrowding issue.
With spot redistricting likely for next year, board members and school officials are looking toward elementary school 11, with a capacity of 585 students, to provide the much-needed classroom space their elementary schools currently lack.
Planned for the Northside neighborhood in Chapel Hill, the school was previously scheduled to open in fall 2014, but due to a funding push by the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools Board of Education and the Orange County Board of Commissioners, the school is scheduled to open its doors to students in fall 2013.
Todd LoFrese, assistant superintendent for support services for CHCCS, said he was “especially pleased that the board of commissioners and the board of education created a plan to expedite elementary school 11 and to get it to a point of funding a year ahead.â€
“This just shows the commitment that both the commissioners and board of education have to public education,†he added.
Since the school will be built in the midst of a residential neighborhood, Steve Triggiano of Moseley Architects said that his firm designed the building to reflect the character of homes in the Northside neighborhood.
“We didn’t want the building to look foreign because of its large size,†Triggiano said.
Because the lot is only 5 acres, which Triggiano says is a compact space to build a school, the school is designed to be three stories. But since the lot is sloped, the third story will be built in a valley, so the building won’t appear as tall.
The building will also feature a variety of environmental features that officials hope will earn the school a LEED gold standard. Green features include porous pavement to reduce stormwater runoff, a 60,000-gallon cistern to collect rainwater from the roof to be used for toilets and natural light where possible to reduce energy consumption.
The environmental features of the building also extend into the construction and deconstruction process, with 75 percent of waste being diverted from the landfill.
Triggiano said that Habitat for Humanity has already been out to the site, which is presently home to three buildings and a trailer, and removed doors, windows and some light fixtures for reuse in their projects.
While steel, stone and wood from the current buildings will be recycled and given new life, the actual school site is being restored to its original purpose.
Stephanie Knott, the assistant superintendent for community relations, said the Orange County Training School was located on the site, opening its doors as an agricultural and vocational school for black children in 1924.
In 1948 the school was renamed Lincoln High School, which moved to Merritt Mill Road in 1951, at which point the school at the Northside site was named Northside Elementary.
However, while the buildings that occupy the site are not part of the original construction, making historic preservation a non-issue, Knott said there are rumors that a cornerstone from the original training school is still somewhere in Orange County.
“We would love to have that returned to us, so that it might become part of the new school and displayed as a part of its very rich history,†she said.