The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
School board makes no changes to sites after public comment
With many of the concerns local voters had with the capital improvements bond proposed by the RE1J school district being addressed, the issue of sustainability was given a little more attention at a public discussion about the project on Monday, August 11.
Roy Blythe, owner and principal of the Grand Junction-based Blythe Group, which is managing the projects, and members of the school board made presentations to groups of parents and community members in Crested Butte and Gunnison to show the latest changes made to the renovation plans for the district’s six school sites.
Several members of the community injected the sustainability of the building into the conversation, something that Blythe said had been part of the planning process all along.
“I feel that at this point it is absolutely critical that the amount of funds included in the bond question is sufficient to provide for meeting the kinds of sustainable standards that you’re talking about,” said community member Tyler Martineau. “It would be unfortunate if the bond passed and there aren’t funds allocated to make the building sustainable to the standard the community deems appropriate.”
Blythe responded, as he has before, that the board had not directed him to seek any third-party certification, such as that offered through Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), to guide the sustainability aspects of the building, but that those measures will be integrated into the design.
“The budgets that we are proposing will be able to support [the added costs of] green, sustainable types of structures. We are not building 20-year buildings that are meant to be thrown away,” said Blythe, adding that the largest costs associated with a school site are the operational costs and that in order to be frugal with taxpayer money, efficient buildings are a logical choice.
In an attempt to pin down what sustainability standard the school will be held to, members of the audience asked if the town of Crested Butte could impose its own standard on the school, whether for sustainable building or for architectural standards set by the Board of Zoning and Architectural Review.
“Everybody needs to know that the school district is a state entity and not a local entity,” said Blythe, “and so the building code process happens through the state. Planning and building, it all goes through the state unless the school board elects to also do that with the local [government].”
Across the district, the changes being made to the plans were minimal and the proposal for the Crested Butte Community School saw no changes after more than $1 million in project savings were announced at a meeting July 28.
Again, two plans were presented for the site: one that would confine the renovated building to the existing property costing around $18 million and a second that would allow expansion onto a neighboring lot that is owned by the town and holds the Tommy Villanueva Memorial ball field, for just over $20 million.
Several members of the community expressed support for the latter plan, as long as the relocation of the ball field is dealt with respectfully. The move will cost the district between $500,000 and $750,000. The Town Council will likely consider whether or not to release the adjacent lot during its meeting on Monday, August 18.
“We’re going to ask for a resolution of intent to commit, so that if the bond were to pass, they would go ahead with moving the ball field and allow us to purchase that space,” says board president MJ Vosburg.
Both options offer the same spaces and amenities, like 16 additional classrooms, a second gymnasium, administrative space and more storage, in different configurations. The school, which was built 12 years ago, has a capacity of 350 students and is expecting an enrollment of around 510 students when school starts August 25.
Changes made to other sites in the district were confined to elements of the project outside of the buildings, like parking lots. Between the two presentations, the public made no direct recommendations on missing parts of the projects or parts of the projects that were included but seen as unnecessary.
“I think that we are pretty right on with what the plans show right now. The only things that we responded to this time were from the information that we got from the phone survey and we made those changes last time. To cut further would be to compromise the educational benefits of the schools and we won’t do that,” said Vosburg.
