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Two options presented to the Maryville Public Building Authority would allow Maryville High School to expand and stay at its current location.
The downside is that as many as 30 surrounding properties would have to be acquired by the city to allow for construction. And more than a handful of them would be taken to build a new parking lot for the school on the west side of the property.
Daryl R. Johnson, with Johnson Architecture Inc., presented the on-site expansion options to the PBA Tuesday. The big difference between the two options is the number of students who would fit into the new buildings — 1,700 compared to 2,200.
Both would require that the original school building, constructed in 1937, to be torn down with a new building constructed on that site.
Barry Brooke, project manager with Lawler-Wood, LLC, said great care would be taken to incorporate the spirit of the old building into the design elements of the new.
On the east side of the school campus, a two- or three-story classroom addition would be constructed, depending on which option is chosen. The addition would add 48 or 68 classrooms respectively.
Overall, expanding the high school on-site would result in 190,000 square feet of new construction for the 1,700-student option and 222,000 for the 2,200-student option. There would be an addition of 150 to 400 parking spaces, depending on which option is chosen, Johnson said.
The school library would be increased from about 6,000 square feet to 12,000, and an 800-seat auditorium and 4,000-seat gymnasium would be constructed in both of the options, he said.
PBA Board Member Dede Christopher was concerned with the number of properties that would have to be taken in and stressed that people would be upset about “their houses being demolished for parking.”
She suggested the possibility of relocating the school’s practice field and using the current location for parking, possibly a parking garage. Cost and the logistics would make that difficult, said PBA Chairman Joe Tipton. And a parking garage on the school’s campus could create an attractive nuisance, giving students a place for mischief.
“I’m thinking about the knucklehead sitting there (in the garage) after lunch smoking his doobie,” he said.
Johnson pointed out that because of the practice field’s usage levels, not just for practice but for physical education curriculum, it would be a difficult move either way.
“(But) the parking lot is just eating up so much of the neighborhood,” Christopher said.
Brooke responded, saying many options had been considered and the two before the PBA were the most workable in a difficult situation.
“This site is a challenge,” he said.
The group’s job is to present four options to the Maryville school board to allow room for additional students, Tipton said. Two completely new construction options have already been compiled and now they have two on-site options.
“Currently we have four options,” he said. “Where do we go from now?”
Brooke said the next step is to come up with cost estimates. “That’s our next step, to put some numbers with the four options,” he said.
The four options will be presented June 14 during a joint work session of the Maryville City Council and Maryville school board.