THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, December 22, 1994 TAG: 9412200124
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 14 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Jon Glass
LENGTH: Medium: 80 lines
WITH MONEY ALREADY TIGHT, the School Board ran into more fiscal woes last week after learning that a plan to renovate and enlarge Granby High School will cost at least $6 million more than budgeted.
The board now faces several options, none of them pleasant:
Ask City Council for more money.
Delay other projects, including the planned air conditioning and renovation of other school buildings.
Scale back or postpone the Granby work.
A combination of all three.
Glenn Capps, senior director of school plant facilities, told the School Board the Granby project is expected to cost $21 million. Outfitting and furnishing the school would raise the price to $23 million.
And those figures do not include a planned indoor pool, which would add another $1 million.
The crunch: The board budgeted only $15.1 million for the project.
``It's not a $15 million project - somebody ought to face the music now,'' John W. Fowler, a Virginia Beach engineering and construction consultant hired by Norfolk schools, told the board.
The $15.1 million set aside is part of a $27.5 million capital improvements budget that City Council approved for the schools through fiscal year 1999.
The bulk of the remaining capital fund is set aside to fulfill promises to finish air-conditioning schools, estimated at $4.4 million, and for other school building projects.
For 1998, the board has targeted $3.5 million to renovate Bay View Elementary and $250,000 for design work on a new Norview High. In 1999, the board plans to spend $1.3 million to expand Norview Elementary and $660,000 for final design of the Norview High project.
Several board members, including chairman Ulysses Turner, said money earmarked for air conditioning should not be diverted to Granby. About 14 schools remain uncooled.
``I think the board's credibility is on the line if we don't follow through on air-conditioning those schools,'' board member Junius P. Fulton said.
The needs of other school buildings can't be ignored, other School Board members said. ``We have buildings that desperately need renovating, not just Granby,'' board member Robert Williams said.
Board members said they hope City Council can be convinced to ante up more money for the Granby project.
Clyde Burnett, assistant superintendent for business and finance, said the school system originally had asked City Council for $19 million to renovate Granby, but ``we were arbitrarily forced to cut it to $15 million.'' Turner added that City Council last year slashed the schools' five-year capital budget request to $27.5 million from $49 million.
The Granby renovation would increase the school's size by about two-thirds, to approximately 265,000 square feet from its current 157,000 square feet. About 115,000 square feet of the existing 1930s-era building will be incorporated into the project.
The decision to renovate rather than build a new structure is adding to the project's cost, board member Joe Waldo said, but the tradeoff is in preserving an important piece of the city's history and architecture.
Waldo, who sits on the board's capital improvements committee, said the project had been designed to the ``base minimum.''
``If we start cutting funds it will result in something less than what we want,'' Waldo said. ``It would be totally unacceptable.''
As designed, the enlarged school would accommodate 2,000 students, 400 more than now. Capps said $2 million could be trimmed off the cost if the project were redesigned for only 1,800 pupils.
Superintendent Roy D. Nichols Jr. cautioned against shrinking the project too much because room is needed for several years of growth.
When pressed by board members, neither Fowler nor administration officials were prepared to say what could be built within the $15 million budget, only that it wasn't enough to construct a facility to state standards for 2,000 students.
``Either we've got to do it for $15 million or we get more money from City Council, and they're not talking too favorably,'' Turner said.
Turner said he hopes school officials can meet with city representatives within the next few weeks to discuss money for the project. by CNB