Category Archive: Education
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Schenley High School shuttering on the table again
By Bill Zlatos
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Friday, November 2, 2007Despite the asbestos in the nearly century-old Schenley High School, real estate officials see a market for it as a place to live or work.
“It’s prominent. It’s handsome, and it’s close to institutions that have a lot of demand. It has market attributes that a lot of other schools don’t have,” said David Matter, president of the Downtown-based Oxford Development Co.
Matter made his comment Thursday, a day after city schools Superintendent Mark Roosevelt proposed for the second time in two years that the school be closed.
Roosevelt cited the $64.3 million cost of removing the asbestos and making mechanical improvements as reasons for closing the school in June. Public hearings will be conducted Nov. 13 and 27, and the school board is scheduled to vote on the proposal in February.
Matter said he talked with Roosevelt a few weeks ago about the marketability of Schenley. Perhaps the school’s greatest asset is its location in Oakland near the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and nearby universities.
“There are institutions that are likely to develop demand for the most appropriate use, which I think is multifamily housing,” Matter said.
Pitt spokesman John Fedele declined to comment on the university’s possible interest in buying the 91-year-old building.
Jason Stewart, vice president of Grubb & Ellis, a Downtown-based commercial real estate services firm, said the building is suitable for condos and offices. Like Matter, he likes Schenley’s location.
“On the surface, the Oakland area is ground zero for our region’s growth,” Stewart said.
Jasmine Davis, 15, of the North Side is a cheerleader and a junior at Schenley. When she learned yesterday morning of the proposed closing, she was heartbroken.
“I don’t want it to close,” Davis said. “I want to graduate from Schenley.”
Supporters of Schenley say they will battle attempts to put it on the market.
“We’re fighting it, but we’re trying to work with the school district,” said Jet Lafean, 56, of Schenley Farms, a member of Save Schenley, a group that opposed the earlier attempt to shut down the school.
He said the group wants to tour the building and review the district’s report on how much the renovation would cost.
“We think the figure’s about half that from what we heard a year ago,” Lafean said.
Roosevelt, however, stands by the estimate.
“You can do a less-expensive remediation that could come around $50 million,” he said. “But we believe to save the building and do it right, the best estimate is $64 million.
Stewart considers Schenley’s historic status — it’s listed on the National Registry of Historic Places — as an asset, too. He cited the conversion of the Heinz factory on the North Shore into Heinz Lofts and the ongoing renovation of the former Nabisco Bakery in East Liberty into Bakery Square, an office and retail development.
Matter said a buyer could take advantage of tax credits available for renovating historic buildings.
Arthur Ziegler, president of the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation at Station Square, said any buyer must have the plans approved by the state historic preservation officer.
Given the district’s estimate for fixing the building, Ziegler said he was not surprised the administration wants to sell it.
“But it certainly is a hallmark school building that many people know and respect,” he said. “So we want to see the building retained, if not by the school board, by a serious developer.”
Neither the real estate officials nor Roosevelt would estimate what the building could fetch on the market.
“I think there will be a purchaser for Schenley,” Roosevelt said. “I think it will be a very modest price.”
Bill Zlatos can be reached at bzlatos@tribweb.com or 412-320-7828.
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Turtle Creek at odds over future of aging school
By Brian Bowling
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, October 4, 2007The fight over East Junior High School in the Woodland Hills School District stands out from other consolidation battles because the struggle isn’t so much over where children will go to school but what will happen to the school building in Turtle Creek.
The Committee to Save Turtle Creek High School — the name the building once carried — has fought efforts to demolish and replace, or even significantly alter, the building.
Bob Mock, a member of the group, said the building defines Turtle Creek.
“This building is the most important building in our town,” Mock said. “It’s really the only park-like setting we have in our town. The whole town is built around it.”
The group achieved a milestone Aug. 30 when the National Park Service put the building on its National Register of Historic Places. Historic status doesn’t make the building demolition-proof, but limits how the district can use federal money to alter the school.
Linda Cole, a school board member, said East Junior High is deteriorating and the group’s opposition has kept the district from making the building handicapped accessible or otherwise modernizing the school. Getting the building on the national register just made matters worse, she said.
“They basically did this so we would not be able to remodel,” Cole said.
Although the district originally looked at renovation or demolition and replacement, the board voted March 14 to start the process of closing the school and moving students to West Junior High School in Swissvale. The board has scheduled a final vote on closing East Junior High for Oct. 10.
Cole said the board’s options have changed over the years because of declining enrollments. With fewer junior high students, the question isn’t how to replace an aging school but how to best educate the remaining students, she said.
Mock said annual test results show East Junior High is one of the few schools in the district that is meeting federal No Child Left Behind standards.
District spokeswoman Maria McCool said West Junior High School only failed to meet the standards with its special education students, so the two schools are practically even on academic achievement. The district’s analysis of the schools shows that West is in better physical condition, which is why the board is considering closing East.
Brian Bowling can be reached at bbowling@tribweb.com or 412-320-7910.
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Woodland Hills considers merging schools
By Karen Zapf
TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Thursday, October 4, 2007A committee of Woodland Hills School District residents has recommended a single building for the district’s junior high students, currently being taught in two schools.
Committee members told the school board Wednesday night they recommend using either East or West junior high schools or constructing a new building. East Junior High is in Turtle Creek and West Junior High is in Swissvale.The committee recommended reusing East Junior High if the board decides it should not continue to function as a junior high school. “The consensus is, please don’t tear it down and turn it into a parking lot,” said George Pike, a member of the committee.
The committee’s suggested uses include a magnet school, an administration building, community or senior center or selling the building to a developer.
East Junior High is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The committee did not attach a dollar figure to its recommendations.
The group met four times in September to come up with a plan as to the future for the district’s approximately 700 junior high students. Both schools house the district’s seventh and eighth graders.
The school board is expected to vote on the committee’s recommendation during its 7:30 p.m. meeting on Wednesday.
Pete and Terri Rubash of Churchill, who have three children in the district, wanted a decision immediately.
“Get five votes and just do it,” said Pete Rubash, 48, who was a member of a committee studying the junior high situation two years ago. “You have a roomful of people at East Junior High who don’t know what’s going to go on.”
Rubash said a single junior high school makes sense. Rubash said he believes East Junior High, which is larger and has easier access than the other, is the best choice.
“It would balance the district so there is a (school) presence in the east and in the west,” Rubash said.
Karen Zapf can be reached at kzapf@tribweb.com or 412-380-8522.
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Walk To School: Busing wastes money and encourages sprawl and walking is healthier, anyway
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
By Thomas Hylton
Pittsburgh Post GazetteMass transit has commanded the headlines as Gov. Ed Rendell wrangles with two northwestern Pennsylvania congressmen, U.S. Reps. Phil English and John Peterson, over tolling Interstate-80 to raise more money for transportation, including $300 million more for urban transit.
Rural legislators say their constituents shouldn’t pay tolls to support buses and rail service in southwestern and southeastern Pennsylvania. Unmentioned in the debate is the state’s second- largest public transportation system — school busing.
Pennsylvania school buses travel more than 381 million miles annually at a cost of more than $1 billion. That’s nearly 75 percent of the cost of the state’s urban and rural transit authorities. Although the state provides about half the funding for both systems, school districts are automatically guaranteed a subsidy based on their aid ratio and miles traveled, no further questions asked.
For example, the Blairsville-Saltsburg School District in Indiana County recently announced plans to close its high school in Saltsburg Borough and bus those students an hour away to an enlarged Blairsville High School at an additional cost of $200,000 annually. Thanks to the state subsidy formula, district taxpayers will only pay $62,000 more. The commonwealth will make up the rest.
Generous subsidies for school busing are just one reason the number of students walking to school has plunged from 50 percent in 1970 to less than 15 percent today. In recent decades, hundreds of walkable neighborhood schools have been closed all across Pennsylvania, often to be replaced by sprawling mega-schools on the urban fringe.
These new schools spawn car-dependent development and drain the life from older communities. Statewide, the loss of neighborhood schools has been a major factor in what the Brookings Institution calls the “hollowing out” of Pennsylvania — disinvestment in older urban areas in favor of developing suburbs.
Alarmed by this trend, the state Department of Education and the Pennsylvania School Boards Association recently sponsored a new publication called “Renovate or Replace? The case for restoring and reusing older school buildings.” The booklet features essays by Gov. Rendell’s top cabinet officers, arguing that renovating older schools can save tax dollars, reinforce established communities and still provide facilities that meet 21st-century educational standards.
For example, state Secretary of Transportation Allen D. Biehler says Pennsylvania can’t afford to grow in the sprawling way it has in the past. Already, Mr. Biehler says, his department is short $1.7 billion annually to meet its obligations. “We need to cut down on excess driving by living and working in closer proximity,” he writes. “Walkable neighborhood schools are an important part of sustaining existing resources.”
A third of our children are overweight or at risk of becoming overweight, writes Dr. Calvin B. Johnson, secretary of health. “The fact is children could get most of the daily exercise they need just by walking 15 or 20 minutes to and from school,” he says. “And they would develop a healthy habit to serve them for a lifetime.”
The Mt. Lebanon School District is held up as a model. The district has not built a new school since 1963. Instead, it has renovated its two middle schools and seven elementary schools, most dating to the 1920s and 1930s, and will soon renovate its 1928 high school. The district’s architect estimates the renovated schools cost about 70 percent of the price of new construction, not including land acquisition.
In fact, a review of all school construction projects approved by the Department of Education in the last three years shows that new construction is nearly twice as expensive, per square foot, as renovations and additions, when total project costs are considered.
The No. 1 principle of green building design is to renovate and recycle existing buildings, writes Kathleen McGinty, state secretary of environmental protection. Renovations, she says, make the maximum use of existing materials and reduce demolition debris.
Thanks to its neighborhood school system, Mt. Lebanon enjoys among the lowest transportation costs of any district in the state. But its neighbor, Baldwin-Whitehall School District, has among the highest.
At one time, Baldwin-Whitehall had a substantial number of walkers attending neighborhood elementary schools like Mt. Lebanon’s. In 1984, the district consolidated its schools, going from 15 buildings to five, and began busing all its students. Today, Baldwin-Whitehall spends about the same, per pupil, as Mt. Lebanon, but dedicates nearly six times more money — $900 per pupil — to busing.
Today, Pennsylvania schools will join hundreds across the country holding special programs to celebrate national Walk to School Day. But you can’t walk to schools built in the middle of nowhere.
“Renovate or Replace” is a first step toward persuading school boards to think holistically when making school construction decisions. The role of public schools goes well beyond the education of our youth. Schools affect neighborhood stability, community character, student health, the environment and especially transportation.
If we want to revitalize our towns, protect our countryside and reduce transportation costs, retaining walkable neighborhood schools is a great place to start.
First published on October 3, 2007 at 12:00 am
Thomas Hylton, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, is president of Save Our Land, Save Our Towns, a nonprofit organization that published “Renovate or Replace” with a grant from the William Penn Foundation (thomashylton@comcast.net). To download a copy, go to www.solsot.org and click on “Neighborhood Schools.”
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Point Park hall will get historic designation
By The Tribune-Review
Tuesday, September 18, 2007Point Park University’s Lawrence Hall will be designated a historic landmark Thursday by the Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation.
The building has been owned by Point Park since 1967 and underwent a major renovation in 2005.Lawrence Hall, on Wood Street, Downtown, originally was built as the Keystone Athletic Club in 1928 and later became the 21-story Sherwyn Hotel.
The historic landmark plaque will be unveiled at 10 a.m. at the main entrance to the hall.
The foundation began its program of identifying architecturally significant structures and landscapes in 1968.
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Allegheny County Designates PHLF to Spearhead Main Street’s Program
Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato announced at a press conference in Swissvale yesterday the initiation of a large-scale Allegheny County Main Streets program. Four pilot communities will be involved: Swissvale, Elizabeth, Tarentum, and Stowe. Landmarks has been designated to operate the program in conjunction with the Allegheny County Department of Economic Development.
Landmarks has selected Town Center Associates of Beaver County to serve as sub-consultant with responsibility for communications with local officials and property and business owners, development of a website and a newsletter, and conduct demographic research.
Landmarks will analyze the historic buildings, prepare recommendations for restoration, develop a real estate strategy for improving retail offerings, conduct market research, assist the County with major facade grant and low-interest loan programs, all designed to help revitalize these Main Street communities.
Funding is coming from Allegheny County and private foundations in Pittsburgh.
Landmarks will field a team of staff members with a variety of experience that will be useful for a comprehensive program, including market research, real estate financial analyses, design, graphics, planned giving, construction and real estate development.
Work begins immediately.
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Many twists and turns for East plans in last three years
By Peggy Conrad,
Staff Writer
Woodland Progress
Wednesday, August 22, 2007By the end of this month or early in September, East Junior High School in Turtle Creek could be listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
“It’s an excellent designation, an excellent honor,” says Ron Yochum, chief information officer of Pittsburgh History and Landmarks Foundation.
He hired a specialist in the field, Laura Ricketts, to research and document the history of the building and submit the proposal, which is “a very, very complicated process,” according to Yochum.
In March, the commission voted unanimously to nominate the structure to the National Register. The National Park Service requested some additional details, which Ricketts submitted with the nomination on July 16.
“We’re hopeful the National Park Service will agree with us, as well as with the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission,” Yochum says.
A decision could be made in the next couple of weeks, as the approval process takes about 45 days to complete. The designation would provide protection for the structure if any federally funded project were threatening the building.The school board voted to begin the process of closing East earlier this year and is scheduled to make a final decision in October. Generations of area residents have attended the school, and many are anxious to see what will become of it.
The first cornerstone for the building was laid in 1917. The school opened in 1918 and the first class graduated in 1919.
In 1939, an addition to house the gym and additional classrooms was built by the Works Progress Administration, a New Deal agency that provided jobs during the Great Depression. A plaque stating the details of the addition is housed, but not currently mounted, at the school.
Originally Union High, the institution was the first joint high school in Pennsylvania, combining Turtle Creek, Wilmerding and East Pittsburgh high schools, according to Bob Mock, head of Committee to Save Turtle Creek High School.
The building became Turtle Creek High, then East Junior High after the merger that formed Woodland Hills School District.
“To remove such a wonderful landmark in the community would be tragic,” says Yochum. “I think it’s an asset for the community that should be preserved.”
If it achieves historic status and a project threatens the building, the case would go into an automatic review process, he says. If the district were to renovate the building, it would not be a problem, unless the renovation would affect the facade.
“I’m sure the community would not be happy with that.” Yochum, whose agency has been offering assistance to Committee to Save Turtle Creek High School, could not be more correct in that assessment.
About two and a half years ago, the group of Turtle Creek residents came together to protest the district’s plans to demolish the building and construct a new junior high school on the same spot.
“Had they done that, knowing what we know now, what a big mistake they would have made,” says Mock, who rallied his neighbors to join the cause.
A national preservationist who attended a town meeting in Turtle Creek in 2005 in support of preserving the school said the structure was a “slam dunk” for the National Register.
“It sailed right through at the state level,” says Mock, a 1968 alumnus of the high school. “This is a positive for our community and a positive for the school district.”
The past few years have been a roller-coaster ride for anyone invested in the future of East. A brief outline follows:
- August 2004 — HHSDR Architects presented preliminary plans for renovation and for new construction. The architects did three to four variations on plans for a new building in the months that followed.
- January 2005 — Hundreds of residents turned out for a town meeting held by the board to voice their opinions on proposed renovation plans for several district buildings. Options for East included the possibility of relocating the school.
- April 2005 — Survey companies were authorized to begin surveying the property at East in preparation for renovation or reconstruction.
- November 2005 — The school board voted in favor of borrowing approximately $30 million to fund the proposed building of a new East Junior High and renovations of the Wolvarena and high school soccer stadium. The district scheduled groundbreaking for the new school building in the summer of 2006.
- November 2005 — A town meeting organized by Commit-tee to Save Turtle Creek High School overflowed with outraged residents who wanted the building to be preserved.
- December 2005 — The board directed HHSDR to de-velop further renovation plans following objections by residents to the planned demolition and rebuilding of the school. Construction costs increased to estimates of $20,641,170 for renovation and $20,329,874 for new construction.
- Initial plans called for putting an addition on the front of the building, but the committee requested the facade not be altered. The administration said keeping the exact shell of a renovated building would increase the cost.
- February 2006 — The board decided to not vote on whether to rebuild or renovate the school until it received more public input on the issue. The district sought residents from all its communities to serve on an ad hoc committee to study the proposed renovation / construction plans.
- May 2006 — After meeting for two months, the committee recommended the district create detailed and comparable design plans, one each for a renovated and new structure, and that the board commit to the least expensive option. Be-cause of a lack of support among members, the board voted to not follow the recommendation and to no longer pursue constructing a new building, but to have renovation plans developed in more detail.
- June 2006 — HHSDR presented an update on work needed immediately at East and asked for direction. Cost of the urgent “A-list” items was $500,000 to $750,000.
- A “B-list” of needed but not urgent items would have cost about $5 million. Following discussion, it was clear the board would not reach a consensus, so the architects were asked to return at a meeting on June 28.
- There was no discussion regarding renovation at that meeting because the board had not had adequate time to meet with the architects and make a decision.
- October 2006 — The superintendent announced the district would consider closing East and two other schools due to declining enrollment.
- Superintendent Roslynne Wilson recommended, as part of the Next Quarter Century Plan, closing Rankin Intermediate, Shaffer Primary and East, as they had the biggest enrollment declines. The proposal was based, in part, on state Act 1, which limits how much districts can hike taxes. The closing of East would save more than $800,000 a year.
- December 2006 — Parents voiced concerns at a public hearing on the plan to consolidate schools. Several board members were concerned that the proposal would have a negative impact.
- January 2007 — All who spoke at a second public hearing were opposed to the consolidation plan. At its next meeting, the board listened to residents and voted down the superintendent’s plan as well as a counterproposal to close East in 2008.
- March 2007 — The board voted to begin the process of closing East and consolidating all seventh- and eighth-graders at West Junior High in 2008-09.
- The Swissvale school, to be renamed Woodland Hills Mid-dle School, would have to be renovated at a cost about $5 million and would have about 740 students in the first year.
- July 2007 — The board held a public hearing on the possible closing of East. Res-idents were opposed to closing the building without a definite plan in place on its future use.
Several options were discussed, including moving ad-ministration offices to the school, turning the building into a creative and performing arts high school for the district and turning it into a charter high school.
Wilson said the process to close the school will include formation of an ad hoc committee that will be asked to report to the board on Oct. 3. The board expects to vote to close the school on Oct. 10.
“It’s been a long saga with a lot of twists and turns,” says Mock, who believes East deserves historic designation for many reasons. The white brick structure was built in the neo-classical style as part of a “City Beautiful” campaign designed to uplift communities in the early 1900s, he says.
“There’s a lot of history here.”
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Children’s Museum award launches plaza repairs
Friday, July 20, 2007
By Patricia Lowry,
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteAllegheny Square, the poorly maintained, concrete heart of the North Side’s Allegheny Center, could be in line for a dramatic makeover, sparked by the desire of the Children’s Museum to transform the 1960s plaza into what museum director Jane Werner calls “a green, sustainable park that’s actually used.”
To help get the process started, the museum has scheduled a collaborative design workshop for tomorrow, using a $50,000 cash prize it is receiving today for winning first place in the Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence competition for its 2004 expansion.
Representatives of the Cambridge, Mass.-based Bruner Foundation will present the Gold Medal award this afternoon at the Children’s Museum.
The museum expansion, by Koning Eizenberg Architects of Santa Monica, Calif., and Perkins Eastman Architects of Pittsburgh, was chosen as the best of nearly 100 projects around the country for its blend of historic preservation and innovative, green design, as well as for the museum’s collaborations and partnerships with other organizations.
The Bruner Award is the museum’s second significant national honor; it won a design award from the American Institute of Architects last year.
At tomorrow’s workshop, to be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in front of the museum, six design firms will meet with museum-goers, North Side residents and other community members to learn what features they would like to see in a new park and town square.
The six designers are landscape architect Andrea Cochran, San Francisco; La Dallman Architects, Milwaukee; architect Doug Garofalo, Chicago; landscape architect Walter Hood, Berkeley, Calif.; landscape architect Dina Klavon, Pittsburgh; and landscape architect Paula Meijerink, Boston. They were chosen from a field of 25 designers, based on portfolios of past work, by representatives of the museum, local design community and the North Side neighborhood.
Everyone is invited to tomorrow’s workshop — or charrette — and those who attend can consult base-map drawings of the existing plaza to produce their own schemes on tracing paper.
Four sand boxes will be set up with scaled items such as people, benches, trees, trash cans and lights, and visitors can design their own parks in three dimensions. Digital cameras will document the designs to capture ideas before other visitors have a go at it.
Participants also can write the top three features they would like to see in the park, as well as the top three functions they would like it to serve, on quilt squares that will be hung for display.
“It’s a little bit free-form,” Ms. Werner said.
While museum staffers conduct the hands-on activities, the six competing designers will be talking with participants and perhaps drawing with them, Ms. Werner said. “It’ll be a little like speed-dating.”
In October, designers will submit their schemes, which will be informally reviewed in a series of community meetings. Later that month, a jury of national design professionals and community leaders will pick the winning designer.
The multilevel Allegheny Square is one of the city’s most interesting but least used public spaces, with a large, stepped, sunken fountain — now defunct — designed to double as an amphitheater and three overlooks that provide views into the plaza, as well as shade.
“I worked at Buhl [Science Center] in 1982,” Ms. Werner said. “I remember the fountain working and kids running through it. But it was so hot to sit out there because there was no shade and it was always a little scary to go under the overhangs.”
The designers could retain some elements of the plaza or reference two of its earlier, greener iterations. Diamond Square had perimeter trees, intersecting diagonal paths and a central, circular fountain surrounded by benches.
In 1939, with the construction of Buhl Planetarium, the fountain was removed and the square redesigned and renamed Ober Park (honoring the fountain’s donor), but remained mostly lawn.
“The Children’s Museum wants to create a new oasis in the city for families, college students, the elderly, Children’s Museum visitors and workers, as well as a place for community events — in a way that builds upon the strengths of the plaza’s history,” said Chris Siefert, the museum’s deputy director.
The designers have been asked to create a green, sustainable park, but have been given a free hand in interpreting what that means.
Although the park could be built within five years, there is no fixed timeline or budget.
The museum will use the Bruner Award’s cash prize to help plan the new park and town square, and also to launch the “Charm Bracelet” project linking North Side and North Shore attractions. One idea is to create a temporary art gallery within the Federal Street underpass.
The Bruner Foundation was established in New York in 1963 by Rudy Bruner, a Romanian immigrant who built a small metals company in a Brooklyn basement into a multimillion dollar public corporation. He and his wife Martha established the foundation “to create opportunity for others, and to instigate meaningful social change,” according to its Web site, www.brunerfoundation.org.
The Rudy Bruner Award for Urban Excellence, given every two years, was founded in 1987 by their son, architect Simeon Bruner of Cambridge, who now heads the foundation. The award is dedicated to discovering and celebrating urban places “distinguished by quality design, and by their social, economic and contextual contributions to the urban environment.”
Patricia Lowry can be reached at plowry@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1590