Firm hired to provide design services for Grandview Heights athletics complex
The Grandview Heights Schools district has hired an architecture firm to provide professional design services for the district’s athletics complex across Third Avenue from the high school.
The school board unanimously approved a resolution March 9 to authorize Superintendent Andy Culp to enter into a contract with the Perkins & Will architectural firm.
According to its website, Perkins & Will is headquartered in Chicago and has offices throughout the United States plus Canada and Denmark and in London, Dublin and Shanghai.
While the resolution gives the superintendent the authority to finalize the contract, “some last-minute tweaking” was needed to complete the process, Treasurer Beth Collier said.
The draft of the contract in the board’s packet for the March 9 meeting was not the final version “but it’s really close,” she said.
The basic contract terms were set, with Perkins & Will to receive a total of up to $151,940, including up to $139,440 for basic services and up to $12,500 for reimbursable costs.
Perkins & Will will complete an assessment of the existing conditions at Bobcat Stadium and master planning services and might also provide design and construction administration services for a project, depending on the outcome of the master plan.
“This contract is for a master planning process to engage user groups – coaches, staff, administrators, booster groups (and) parent groups to create a good-better-best vision and a design of a master plan for (our) K-12 athletic complex,” Culp said.
The study also would provide cost estimates for each potential improvement plan that might be considered, he said.
A series of community meetings will be held to give the public a chance to provide its feedback about the potential direction for an improvement project at the athletics complex, Culp said.
The district interviewed three firms and asked each what might be done with the current home stadium stands as part of a potential project, he said.
“That was a big decision point, so there will be community meetings (to discuss) the pros and cons of building new stands with new locker rooms and concession stands under it and bathrooms under it,” Culp said. “That’s an example about what might be discussed at one of the community meetings.”
Starting the master planning process does not mean there is a preconceived desire to go on the ballot in a couple years with an athletics complex measure, he said.
“Right now, we want a plan with options for consideration and one of the other challenges and core rationales for our wanting to do this is that in the absence of a plan, it’s hard to spend money for even modest improvements because you begin to worry about spending money backwards,” Culp said.
In essence, the district will be taking the same approach to developing a potential athletics complex improvement project as it did in creating the project to build a new middle school and complete major renovations at the high school, “although it might not be as big and grand,” he said.
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