Joe Peffer's Columbus Condo Blog

Downtown Career Center at 4th and Fulton gets OK

This is fantastic news for the southern edge of Downtown. The building that sits there now truly is an eyesore and the artists rendering of the new CPS Career Center looks like a newly built office complex which would be a big improvement.
Better yet, the center will offer a beauty salon and restaurant for those living and working downtown to be run by the students. That part of town could use a lunch spot, especially with outdoor seating. Just ask anyone living at the Renaissance.
Maybe the best news, though, is that the district wants to make sure the space is flexible should they want to someday turn it into an alternative school. How many times have I said that we need a Public downtown elementary, middle and high school with a sterling academic reputation. It's nice to see the district, at the very least, has an eye open for such in the future.
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Plans OK'd for first high school in Downtown business district
Friday, March 24, 2006
Debbie Gebolys
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

Columbus Public Schools received the OK yesterday to build a $24 million high school the first in city history in the Downtown business district.
Yet to be named, the career center and adult-education center will be built on Mound Street, between 4 th and 5 th streets, in time for the 2008-2009 school year.
"I think it's going to be huge for Downtown," said Carole Olshavsky, senior executive of capital improvements for the school district. "It represents a change in the philosophy of investing in kids."
The Downtown Commission approved the district's request to demolish an 86-year-old former sheriff's office building that stands vacant on the site.
School administrators expect to begin site work this summer and construction on the school before the end of the year.
The school will open as a career center, but Superintendent Gene Harris "is very interested in a flexible building for the future," Olshavsky said. Officials want to design the space so it can be converted to an alternative high school or another type of school if needed.
The Downtown school and one being expanded at Fort Hayes Arts and Academic High School will replace the Northwest, Northeast and Southeast Career centers and serve 2,000 students.
The curriculum for highschool juniors and seniors will be tailored to capitalize on surrounding Downtown workplaces, with students expected to get experience and internships at a nearby Columbus fire station, the Franklin County Courthouse and local businesses, Olshavsky said.
Among the areas of study will be accounting, logistics and information technology, emergency medical technology, firefighting and criminal justice.
Administrators also want Downtown workers and residents to patronize a restaurant and beauty salon planned for the school.
To be built along the 4 th Street side of the building, the salon and restaurant represent the school's cosmetology and culinary-arts programs and will be run by students. The restaurant will have both indoor and outdoor seating.
The four-story, 136,000-square-foot school will be the district's tallest, large enough to accommodate 800 students in each of two half-day sessions per school day.
Architects envision Mound Street as the main entrance and student dropoff area. School buses would use the Engler Street alley south of the school for bus dropoffs.
Olshavsky, however, said that unresolved plans for rebuilding the I-70/71 split could affect that.
If the Ohio Department of Transportation decides to use Mound and Fulton streets to funnel traffic to and from the highway, one of several proposals the state is considering, dropoff areas could be moved.
School officials expect final designs by May.
The district paid the state of Ohio, which rented the space to the county, $2.2 million in January for the 3-acre site and for two parking lots immediately south of Engler, intended to serve as staff parking.
It was $1.5 million less that the Franklin County auditor's office appraised the properties for last year and $600,000 less than the district had budgeted.
The parking lots surround the former Pfeifer Printing Co. at 190 E. Fulton St., which the district also wanted to buy to add an auditorium to the school.
Owners are asking $1.4 million for the property; the auditor appraised it at $550,000.
dgebolys@dispatch.com

posted by Joe Peffer - Full Time Professional Realtor @ 12:55 PM