Committee favors draft plan

Architects tweaked their first draft of McCook's new single-site preschool-K-3 elementary school, and facilities committee members gave them the go-ahead Thursday to create their more-detailed plans.

"Close enough for now? Keep going?," Jim Berg of Bahr Vermeer Haecker Architects asked committee members Greg Larson, Michael Gonzales and Jim Coady. Three heads nodded.

Detailed computer-aided design plans will be presented to committee members Thursday, July 15.

Architects will then meet with the committee, administration and staff at 5 p.m., Thursday, July 22. Sampson Construction, the firm hired as construction manager, will also present the first draft of the schematic cost estimate then.

The plans will go before the full board during a special meeting the last week of July. "We'll need a sign-off on the plans then," Berg said.

Architects used comments, recommendations and suggestions from facilities committee members, administration and staff this week to tweak the first draft they presented Tuesday.

The drawing now includes:

* Six classrooms per grade, instead of five. New kindergarten classrooms, on the south, will be 1,200 square feet each. First grade classrooms, in the existing building, will be 800 square feet each. Second and third grade classrooms, in the new addition on the north, will be 900 square feet each.

* A full-preparation kitchen.

* A Title I classroom instead of a conference room on the south side of the library-media center, because of the abundance of natural lighting.

* A main entry design that forces visitors to check in immediately with the secretaries' office.

* Student loading and unloading areas, with curb cuts, around the entire perimeter of the school block. Berg said this should naturally encourage a clock-wise movement around the block and right-hand loading and unloading.

Berg said he would like to see the city of McCook restrict truck traffic from West Q and Third streets, but he hesitated to recommend one-way streets and/or stop lights.

* A gym that has been reduced to a junior-high-sized basketball court without seating. Committee members, however, asked architects to investigate the cost of a full-sized basketball court, with seating, with and without wooden floors.

Berg said architects will have to know which gym to design by August 1.

Berg said the engineering firm of Miller and Associates of McCook will be brought on board, first, to help get the three modular classrooms moved and set before school starts the week of Aug. 16. Committee member Jim Coady said the modulars will have to be inspected before classes start.

Berg said fencing will be installed early on, to get students used to staying out of what will be the construction zones around the existing school.

Berg told committee members that BVH and Sampson staff have had a good week. "We've had great participation from staff and administration," he said. "We've gotten a lot done."

"It's been a great kick-off," to the renovation and expansion project, Berg said, mentioning the flexibility of facilities committee members and staff assistance, particularly that of elementary principal Kathy Latta.