Wednesday, January 28, 2004
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Wednesday, January 28, 2004 |
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Whitewater High School designed for ‘wow!’ By J. FRANK LYNCH Don’t feel sorry for those Whitewater High School freshmen forced to spend this year wandering around the aging, dusty quarters of the LaFayette Educational Center. Come August, they’ll cross over to the “Promised Land” — a fully finished, completely outfitted $25 million Whitewater High School complex delivered on time and, remarkably, under budget. That may be a first for the Fayette County Board of Education, which historically has built new high schools in phases over two or three years. Athletic fields and stadiums were projects for booster clubs to rally around. Sandy Creek, built 13 years ago, is just now getting an auditorium. McIntosh, the county’s oldest high school campus still in use, is finally getting a decent gym, 22 years after opening on 35 acres, now maxed out. Facilities Services Director Mike Satterfield proudly calls Whitewater the “prototype high school” for the future, and not just in Fayette County. A meeting of school facilities managers from around the state will come to Fayetteville next fall just to see what the talk is about. Whitewater, sharing more than 100 acres with Sara Harp Minter Elementary, already has a completed 4,000 seat football stadium with ready-to-run rubber track, separate softball and baseball complexes, and sodded, fenced practice fields for football, soccer and marching band. The gym, with a ceiling that soars to endless rows of celestial windows, will seat more than 2,000. The cafeteria, sharing a wall of glass with the gym, is just as big and bright and might seat as many. It’s far and away the biggest cafeteria ever built in Fayette County, inspired by the realization that Starr’s Mill’s dining hall is woefully small, said Satterfield. Whitewater was designed by a Griffin firm and is being built by Japanese, but it got its roots at Sandy Creek. The two schools share a common “footprint,” a proven layout that calls for parallel classroom wings on one side, and all auxiliary facilities like gym, fine arts, special ed wing, library and offices balancing the other. And then there is the auditorium. Though largely still a shell, a visitor can easily stand on the stage and see where industry-standard light riggings and fly system will soon be installed, complete with a series of catwalks accessed by a dizzying circular stairway just off stage left. Outfitted with about 600 sloping seats, the theater will include stage-level wings flanking the entire length of the theater. A loading dock outback will accommodate load-in for touring shows. The lobby, stark and minimalistic, includes two ticket windows. There will be a marquee. For all its bells and whistles, Whitewater High will be functional, not fancy, said Principal Greg Stillions. The same brick color scheme on the exterior will be carried over to accent hexagon-shaped entry lobbies at four corners of the main building. Otherwise, the walls will be Fayette County White, a special blend created exclusively for the system by Duron Paints. Instead of carpet, floors will be tiled. And classrooms? They won’t have windows, at least not to the outside. Interior glass panels opaqued for privacy will allow light into rooms via huge glass panels in the hallway ceilings. Skylights are possible only because AC units, wiring and plumbing is contained in innovative “utility hallways” that are hidden down the center of each row of classrooms. Maintenance crews can do routine work without hauling a ladder into the middle of a busy class, a feature Satterfield is especially proud of. Sure, there will be imperfections when Whitewater High comes online in June. But for the most part, this is one well-planned complex. Consider: The wide, green lawn in front of Minter Elementary, which commuters admire from Hwy. 85, conceals a massive underground septic system that serves both schools, Satterfield said. Millions of gallons of sewerage is pumped into holding tanks deep underground daily, where nature takes its course. And if it fails? Not to worry. Twenty additional acres on the opposite side of the high school sit vacant, waiting for nothing more than to be called into service. That’s smart. Welcome to Wildcat Country.
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