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Schools

Middle school campus to add an elementary

The decision to build at Walker Middle School is part of a new strategy to meet growth needs.

By JEFFREY S. SOLOCHEK
Published November 9, 2005

TAMPA - Unable to secure land independently, the Hillsborough School Board turned Tuesday to its own property stockpile to build a new elementary school in the crowded northwest corner of the county.

The unused acres of the Walker Middle School campus on N Mobley Road in Keystone, once deemed unsuitable for another school, have become the board's top choice for the new elementary. Once built, the school would ease crowding primarily at McKitrick Elementary in Lutz.

The School Board also made plans to put a new middle school on Van Dyke Road, between Gunn Highway and the Veterans Expressway. It had considered several other sites, including the former Hollywood 20 movie theater on Van Dyke, before settling on the location next to the Florida Salvation Army headquarters.

"As we see the incredible growth out there, we have to go back and rethink everything we've said before," superintendent MaryEllen Elia said. "We cannot walk away from any site up there."

Or anywhere else, for that matter.

School officials have labeled two of every five Hillsborough schools as overcrowded, with need for quick relief. But land that meets the traditional criteria for schools has become increasingly expensive and scarce.

"We used to just look at X number of acres for an elementary site, or a middle school site, or a high school site," facilities director Cathy Valdes said. "If there were any problems, we didn't go for it. Our site selections are so limited in some parts of the county that we're revisiting sites we looked at before."

Elia expects more schools to rise on existing campuses. That would save money on land buys and avoid nasty fights with community groups that oppose chosen sites.

The School Board has struggled to find land in northwest Hillsborough for years.

The Keystone Civic Association has sued to stop an elementary school at Gunn Highway and N Mobley Road. Developer Bill Bishop balked at putting a school in his Highland Park subdivision when the school district wouldn't meet his aesthetic demands.

Among middle school sites, property buyers couldn't persuade one owner to sell land adjacent to Northwest Elementary, and school planners couldn't justify the expense of renovating the old movie theater at Van Dyke Road and N Dale Mabry Highway. Officials have tried since the late 1990s to find a satisfactory high school site in Lutz.

Schools in the area, meanwhile, have become poster children for campuses with too many students and not enough seats. Bryant Elementary in Westchase, for example, has 1,316 students crammed into a school built for 882. McKitrick Elementary has 1,127 youngsters in a school built for 902.

If all goes well, district officials hope to ease the load with a 960-seat building on the Walker campus by January 2007. Architects have figured out how to place one of the district's prototype designs onto the site without disturbing wetlands or utility lines, both considered hindrances in the past, Valdes said.

Valdes remains hopeful the district could move quickly to get a second school site in the area before January, to lessen the crowding at Bryant. She said none of the other properties in play, including the land under legal dispute on Gunn Highway, has fallen out of the mix.

The new middle school is scheduled to open in August 2008.

Before the sites are settled, the district will have public meetings where community members can give their views on the locations. The administration and School Board will weigh the comments against the need, so the likelihood that something will change is low.

"This is an urgent need, so the comments would really have to be of an urgent nature," Valdes said.

Jeffrey S. Solochek can be reached at 813 269-5304 or solochek@sptimes.com

[Last modified November 9, 2005, 00:39:17]