By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
The Hays school board had its first look at the architectural drawings for the additions/renovations at O'Loughlin Elementary School Monday night.
The project is part of a $143 million bond issue. Bids are set to go out this summer, and ground will be broken on Jan. 1. Estimated completion is August 2026.
Mike Fahey, DLR Group architect, presented to the board.
The project will include two additions on the southwest and northeast sides of the school, totaling 12,000 additional square feet. The current building is about 46,000 square feet.
O'Loughlin Elementary School will remain a three-section school. That means it will have three classrooms for every grade, kindergarten through fifth. The square footage of the kindergarten rooms will be expanded.
The southwest addition will include a new cafeteria, commercial kitchen, art room and secure entrance.
The administrative offices will be moved to the southwest portion of the school to the new entrance and those spaces will be expanded.
The parking and traffic circulation will be reconfigured as part of the bond project.
A new road will run from the school to 12th Street. This will allow parents to drop off children via the current circle drive access off of Hall Street and through the new parking area off 12th Street.
The district's intent is to eliminate the need for vehicle stacking on Hall Street and Victory Road on the Thomas More Prep-Marian campus.
The east addition will include three new classrooms, one of which will be a collaborative classroom. The entire east addition will serve as a storm shelter and will be able to accommodate the entire student body and staff. The windows will be bullet- and high-wind-rated.
Once the addition is complete, the district will no longer need its portable unit, which it is leasing.
If additional space is needed, the collaboration classroom could be converted into a regular classroom, Fahey said.
The stage in the gym will be enclosed to create a music room, which will be wheelchair accessible by a new concrete ramp. The current music room will be turned into a STEM lab.
The Title 1 classrooms will be moved to give clearer views of the media center.
All the classrooms will have new flooring, paint, and ceilings where needed. The building's windows have already been replaced and will be retained in the renovation.
The additions will have firewalls and sprinklers. A fire standpipe will be added to the existing building.
Board member Derek Yarmer asked why the architects are proposing a one-story addition instead of a two-story addition, which was discussed earlier in the bond planning. He said he also thought another gym was in the plans.
Fahey said the two-story idea was in the early bond concepts, but a two-story building is more expensive. As O'Loughlin will be staying a three-section school, the additional gym will not be needed.
Roosevelt Elementary School is being expanded into a five-section school, and the new Felten Elementary School, which will be in the renovated middle school, will be a four-section school.
Board member Allen Park asked why the O'Loughlin renovation/addition costs more per square foot than the Roosevelt addition. Fahey said the O'Loughlin site plan is more complicated because part of the district land is in a 100-year floodplain.
None of the building will be in the flood plain.
The work also includes constructing a new road and parking lot to improve traffic circulation. The $19.78 million Roosevelt addition is on a flat piece of land and required little reconfiguration of the existing building, Fahey said.
Yarmer asked for a budget for the rest of the bond projects. He has expressed concerns that not enough money will be left from the bond to fully fund the renovations at the remaining schools—the current Hays High School, which will be renovated into a new middle school, and the current Hays Middle School, which will be renovated into an elementary school.
"We have no idea at this time because we don't have designs," Wilson said.
