School district shares Wiley site plans with UH officials

Preliminary plans for the Wiley site. Courtesy CH-UH City School District.

The CH-UH City School District Board of Education shared its preliminary plans for use of the Wiley Middle School property as “swing space” at a public meeting with University Heights City Council on March 17. The district plans to use the school to house Heights High students and then middle school students while the high school and Roxboro and Monticello middle schools are renovated.

Heights residents passed a $134.8 million bond issue in November 2013 to help fund the first phase of a master plan to renovate all of the district’s facilities. This included about $11.7 million for modifications to the Wiley property, to enable it to be used as swing space for the first phase of the plan.

The high school will be renovated first, and Wiley will house high school students from 2015 through 2017. Then, Wiley will house all of the district’s middle school students from 2017 through 2019. The district then plans to use Wiley as swing space for elementary school students as those buildings are renovated in a later phase of the plan.

Preliminary plans call for more than 30 modular classrooms, in seven stand-alone buildings, to be built on the Wiley property. They will connect to the school building via enclosed hallways and will house academic, athletic and arts programs. Additional community facilities may be also be used. The Heights Career Tech program will be temporarily relocated to the Delisle Center on Taylor Road.

The swing space site will include temporary, free-standing music and administration buildings and an auxiliary gym. It will also include additional parking for staff and a one-way drive that will encircle the perimeter of the property to improve traffic flow during student pick-up and drop-off times.

The Board of Education Building will remain at its current location, just north of the Wiley property.

University Heights Mayor Susan Infeld expressed concerns about the increased activity that the district’s plan will bring to the Wiley site. “My concern is for the safety of the people on the site, the impact to the surrounding neighborhood and the city at large,” said Infeld. “As of now the district officials said they were not considering a co-location for this temporary high school to alleviate the expected cramped conditions.”

Steve Shergalis, director of administrative services for the district, said that the district will provide the city with a preliminary construction schedule and photos of modular units, and will perform a traffic study. He said that the district will work closely with all University Heights city departments, including Fire and Police, and will formally present its plans to the Planning Commission and Building Department.

The district sought the city’s input on ideas for addressing the needs of its aquatic program and floated the idea of using the Purvis Park pool, which is currently open only during the summer. “We brought up the idea of installing a temporary inflatable dome over the Purvis Park pool to make it useable during the winter for our athletic programs,” Shergalis said. “This would be similar to the one utilized by CSU for their soccer fields, only much smaller.”

Both the city and the district agreed that more study was needed to determine if this was a viable option, and to explore other potential solutions. 

“Our plans are still evolving and we will certainly address all of the city’s concerns,” Shergalis said. No dates have yet been set for future meetings.