The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
New location found for offices
Superintendent hopeful to take possession of new building by end of January
The Willoughby-Eastlake School Board has decided on a permanent location to house their offices after a March 14 fire
destroyed their former location.
“We have entered into an agreement to purchase the building right next to Captains’ Stadium (Classic Park) on Curtis Boulevard for $1.2 million and we are down to the nitty-gritty on our insurance settlement,” Superintendent Steven Thompson said.
Thompson stated in an early December interview that they anticipated the settlement to be finalized by Christmas, but a Jan. 3 phone call to the superintendent’s office revealed that a settlement had not yet been finalized.
The district contracted with the Alex N. Sill Adjustment Co. on June 19 to help with settlement discussions after the insurance company submitted an offer the superintendent thought was too far below the anticipated value.
The school district expects to take ownership of the property located at 35353 Curtis Blvd. by the end of January.
Thompson would like to see
renovations started as soon as possible with hopes of moving from the their current location at the W-E School of Innovation into the new location in the fall.
With the addition of another grade being added to School of Innovation, space is becoming limited and the School Board needs to move their offices out to make room for the students, according to Thompson.
He has indicated that he has tentative settlement numbers and the numbers are what he considers fair and reasonable, but is waiting until the insurance company comes through with a final settlement before releasing it to the public.
Employees who worked out the of location damaged by the fire have been compensated through the insurance company for personal
items lost in the fire. Settlement negotiations are over the building physical structure and all the contents that were inside the building such as computers, furniture and such, according to the superintendent.
The district’s decision to buy another building instead of rebuilding was based on what he said was the ability to obtain a “walk away check,” where the insurance company issues a check in the amount agreed upon and the district can do what it wants with the money, as opposed to rebuilding where the settlement would cover rebuild cost only.
Thompson expects the district to be able to purchase the new building, do the required renovations on it and have money left over to invest into other buildings.
“We will definitely be able to,” Thompson said of moving leftover money to other buildings. “It will be several hundred thousand
dollars we will be able to move to the elementary schools for renovations after renovations on the new building.”
He notes that they are
still in the process of deciding how extensive the renovations on the new building will be.
“Some things are non-negotiable such as windows
and the HVAC,” Thompson said. “We have to put it out to bid to contractors and once we get those bids back we can determine what we are going to renovate and
what we aren’t. We have rough estimates on the cost, but not concrete numbers.”
The former location of the School Board offices will be converted into athletic practice space, according to the superintendent.
“If you look at the footprint of the new South High School, it eats up a lot of athletic space,” he said. “It will be a general practice space, we are anticipating for soccer but that will evolve and change. It will evolve and change, but it will definitely be some type of field space for the athletics program.”
Thompson said it will be a work in progress, once the settlement comes in, because the space is needed now, and it will potentially be funded by money from the settlement.
He said the field probably won’t be ready for use until the start of the 2019 school year as it can take up to a year for the field to grow in and it would need to be leveled off before seeding.