Can APS change career center plans?

[Anonymous]

Did APS really mess up their career center plans? APE and AEM have posts about it. Sounds like they don’t have money to do anything else if they do the career center project. Can APS change their plans or is too late?

[Anonymous]

Too late. They’ve been working on plans for this site for a decade, at least. The neighborhood (main poster on AEM and a member of APE) is still mad that it’s not going to be now, or ever, a neighborhood 4th HS once they spend all this money for a brand new building built to spec (when they were talking about converting the old CC building they left open the possibility that it could eventually become a neighborhood 4th HS, but that door is now closed with this newer plan). Others on AEM are mad that option schools (in SOUTH Arlington) are going to use up so much of the available budget. Not because they don’t like those programs, but they think more of the money should be spent on upgrading their NORTH Arlington neighborhood schools. This is done. Spend your time worrying about something else.

[Anonymous]

4th high school is never happening, and new missing middle zoning will radically densify Arlington and make any sort of purchase of adjacent plots impossible if trying to expand a site. Plus increase student population.

[Anonymous]

I think that's unfair to the neighborhood poster. No one is talking 4th HS anymore b/c enrollment is so far down, plus that site was never good for a neighborhood HS for all the reasons that were pointed out 2-3 years ago.

I actually think the potential funding shortfall identified in the JFAC letter is just that: potential. Maybe this will restrict ability to do future projects, maybe not. However, from a transparency and fiscal responsibility standpoint, it is a HUGE problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think that's unfair to the neighborhood poster. No one is talking 4th HS anymore b/c enrollment is so far down, plus that site was never good for a neighborhood HS for all the reasons that were pointed out 2-3 years ago.

I actually think the potential funding shortfall identified in the JFAC letter is just that: potential. Maybe this will restrict ability to do future projects, maybe not. However, from a transparency and fiscal responsibility standpoint, it is a HUGE problem.

Whatever. Nobody ever says anything when the NORTH Arlington schools go way over budget (Cardinal anyone?!). It’s not a huge problem. Glebe doesn’t need special HVAC with UV whatever for Covid mitigation. Move on.

[Anonymous]

It seems like it's done. As I understand the neighborhood concerns (and it's not one person, it's all the surrounding neighborhoods plus JFAC and many others), it's that they spent all this money and time and years of planning talking about one thing with a set of fixed assumptions that could not be changed, and then threw all that out the window and now said they are willing to basically tear down everything else on the site, but have never explained or budgeted how it will all work.

By abandoning the existing building, they have to spend money on a second project down the road. I saw on AEM that's apparently going to be for Montessori now? So it ends up being a lot of APS' overall budget being spent one that one parcel of land.

But like I said, it seems like it's done, and too bad for any other project.

[Anonymous]

This all sounds very typical for APS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It seems like it's done. As I understand the neighborhood concerns (and it's not one person, it's all the surrounding neighborhoods plus JFAC and many others), it's that they spent all this money and time and years of planning talking about one thing with a set of fixed assumptions that could not be changed, and then threw all that out the window and now said they are willing to basically tear down everything else on the site, but have never explained or budgeted how it will all work.

By abandoning the existing building, they have to spend money on a second project down the road. I saw on AEM that's apparently going to be for Montessori now? So it ends up being a lot of APS' overall budget being spent one that one parcel of land.

But like I said, it seems like it's done, and too bad for any other project.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It seems like it's done. As I understand the neighborhood concerns (and it's not one person, it's all the surrounding neighborhoods plus JFAC and many others), it's that they spent all this money and time and years of planning talking about one thing with a set of fixed assumptions that could not be changed, and then threw all that out the window and now said they are willing to basically tear down everything else on the site, but have never explained or budgeted how it will all work.

By abandoning the existing building, they have to spend money on a second project down the road. I saw on AEM that's apparently going to be for Montessori now? So it ends up being a lot of APS' overall budget being spent one that one parcel of land.

But like I said, it seems like it's done, and too bad for any other project.

So that plan came in even higher and they had to scrap it. Remember that? They can’t work around the old CC building and make a really usable HS for as many students as they envision serving within the budget. Montessori is smaller, and I guess they think it will cost less to renovate the CC to become a Pre-K-5 or 8th grade building. Montessori is going to push for a fancy upgrade, but I don’t think they’re going to get it. They need to be happy with whatever they get out of that building.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems like it's done. As I understand the neighborhood concerns (and it's not one person, it's all the surrounding neighborhoods plus JFAC and many others), it's that they spent all this money and time and years of planning talking about one thing with a set of fixed assumptions that could not be changed, and then threw all that out the window and now said they are willing to basically tear down everything else on the site, but have never explained or budgeted how it will all work.

By abandoning the existing building, they have to spend money on a second project down the road. I saw on AEM that's apparently going to be for Montessori now? So it ends up being a lot of APS' overall budget being spent one that one parcel of land.

But like I said, it seems like it's done, and too bad for any other project.

So that plan came in even higher and they had to scrap it. Remember that? They can’t work around the old CC building and make a really usable HS for as many students as they envision serving within the budget. Montessori is smaller, and I guess they think it will cost less to renovate the CC to become a Pre-K-5 or 8th grade building. Montessori is going to push for a fancy upgrade, but I don’t think they’re going to get it. They need to be happy with whatever they get out of that building.

The last plan that was way over budget (the 2020 plan) was much larger building: $235+ million for 2200 students. Now they are talking about $170 million for 1800 students or $153 million for 1350. So that's a cost per seat of: $106,818; $94,444; or $113,333 (but those last two numbers don't include whatever the cost is to turn the existing CC into the new MPSA when you tear down the old Henry building -- which is probably not a net gain of any seats). So it's not as straight forward as they are pretending it is, cost-wise.

The cheapest part of the last plan was renovating the existing space. APS never proposed what it would cost to take the existing space and re-do it for 1350 CC students. But there is no way that's not cheaper than everything they are talking about now.

But I agree with PP's above: a) this is typical, and b) it's done. So I have a hard time still caring.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This all sounds very typical for APS.

Blowing a ton of money on an option schools, where have I heard that before?

#HBWHighSchoolOnly

[Anonymous]

the career center ongoing debacle has been in the works for years. I well remember back in 2016 attending all these community engagement meetings about where to site a 4th highschool. Initially APS was looking at 2 sites- the Kenmore site and the ed center next door to W&L. With kenmore there was the though of getting the vhc property across the street for the middle school. With W&L there was the thought of getting access to the county property across Quincy.
Then community engagement. The well organized neighbors around Kenmore pitched a fit about traffic, Carlin Springs RD, lack of direct egress to 50, etc.
The ASFS parents (who could see the loss of their school site coming) somehow thought they were going to get the property across from W&L to expand ASFS? build a second ASFS? never totally clear- but organized in opposition, along with a whole bunch of W&L parents who were concerned that building there would just make W&L a massive school with no real separation (Which incidentally has in fact come to pass).
Then the career center neighbors came forward and ASKED for the 4th high school to be sited at the career center. Apparently they thought that they could get a small sized neighborhood high school sited at the career center, but with all the community ammenities that come with a full sized high school- namely a swimming pool and a track.
At various times APS has attempted to draw such a building- but it never has all the ammenities the neighbors want, and it is always massively too expensive (b/c of the need to build huge underground parking, and the difficulty of fitting all the desired stuff on such a small footprint.)
BUT APS has never quite been willing to just say, screw it, we do community 'engagement' too often and mistake a handful of well organized voices for the will of the community- if we need a new HS it needs to be at Kenmore. So instead we are left with the career center mess.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:the career center ongoing debacle has been in the works for years. I well remember back in 2016 attending all these community engagement meetings about where to site a 4th highschool. Initially APS was looking at 2 sites- the Kenmore site and the ed center next door to W&L. With kenmore there was the though of getting the vhc property across the street for the middle school. With W&L there was the thought of getting access to the county property across Quincy.
Then community engagement. The well organized neighbors around Kenmore pitched a fit about traffic, Carlin Springs RD, lack of direct egress to 50, etc.
The ASFS parents (who could see the loss of their school site coming) somehow thought they were going to get the property across from W&L to expand ASFS? build a second ASFS? never totally clear- but organized in opposition, along with a whole bunch of W&L parents who were concerned that building there would just make W&L a massive school with no real separation (Which incidentally has in fact come to pass).
Then the career center neighbors came forward and ASKED for the 4th high school to be sited at the career center. Apparently they thought that they could get a small sized neighborhood high school sited at the career center, but with all the community ammenities that come with a full sized high school- namely a swimming pool and a track.
At various times APS has attempted to draw such a building- but it never has all the ammenities the neighbors want, and it is always massively too expensive (b/c of the need to build huge underground parking, and the difficulty of fitting all the desired stuff on such a small footprint.)
BUT APS has never quite been willing to just say, screw it, we do community 'engagement' too often and mistake a handful of well organized voices for the will of the community- if we need a new HS it needs to be at Kenmore. So instead we are left with the career center mess.

Want to say as one of the site neighbors I'm perfectly happy with Kenmore, but APS will never do it. APS drew it up and you can build a 4th HS at Career Center it just costs $200+ million. They don't want to spend that, so instead they are going to spend $170 million just for the CC, then another $50 million to renovate MPSA, which will cost the same amount of money when all is said and done, and we will never get a 4th HS, so the schools are all going to keep supersizing. Glad my kids are done with APS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:the career center ongoing debacle has been in the works for years. I well remember back in 2016 attending all these community engagement meetings about where to site a 4th highschool. Initially APS was looking at 2 sites- the Kenmore site and the ed center next door to W&L. With kenmore there was the though of getting the vhc property across the street for the middle school. With W&L there was the thought of getting access to the county property across Quincy.
Then community engagement. The well organized neighbors around Kenmore pitched a fit about traffic, Carlin Springs RD, lack of direct egress to 50, etc.
The ASFS parents (who could see the loss of their school site coming) somehow thought they were going to get the property across from W&L to expand ASFS? build a second ASFS? never totally clear- but organized in opposition, along with a whole bunch of W&L parents who were concerned that building there would just make W&L a massive school with no real separation (Which incidentally has in fact come to pass).
Then the career center neighbors came forward and ASKED for the 4th high school to be sited at the career center. Apparently they thought that they could get a small sized neighborhood high school sited at the career center, but with all the community ammenities that come with a full sized high school- namely a swimming pool and a track.
At various times APS has attempted to draw such a building- but it never has all the ammenities the neighbors want, and it is always massively too expensive (b/c of the need to build huge underground parking, and the difficulty of fitting all the desired stuff on such a small footprint.)
BUT APS has never quite been willing to just say, screw it, we do community 'engagement' too often and mistake a handful of well organized voices for the will of the community- if we need a new HS it needs to be at Kenmore. So instead we are left with the career center mess.

This is a great summary.