Roosevelt HS Expansion News - 12/24/01

On January 29th, the next Seattle School District public meeting on the Environmental Impact Statement for the Roosevelt High School (RHS) expansion will occur. The next meeting of the Friends of RHS Historic Preservation wiil be on January 23rd at 7:00PM in the Roosevelt High School library. To receive more information about these and subsequent RHS expansion meetings or to request being added to the Friends of RHS Historic Preservation e-mail list send your request to RestoreRHS@hotmail.com.

If you are interested the in proposed changes to RHS and what happened at the Dec 10th Design Review Committee meeting, please read the following by Andrea Wilson of Friends of RHS Historic Preservation.

Dec 10, 2001 RHS had the second meeting of the Design Review Committee.

The agenda was to review preliminary site plans prepared by NW Architects. The architect from NW Architects started by explaining the five different site plans. Four of the site plans showed a regulation size track and football/soccer field running north/south on the west side of the existing school property. This was made possible by moving 66th street south. In three of these plans, parking would be provided under the south end of the track/football field. This would be possible because of the slope of the land from north to south. In the fourth plan the track/ football field was lowered to the level of 66th street. This would provide a natural area for viewing the action on the track or field.

In each of these four plans there were a variety of locations for additional parking, tennis courts, an outside student gathering area, and parent pick-up/drop-off. Additionally, new buildings were shown in the same general locations as the existing gym and lunchroom/classroom buildings or the existing gym and lunchroom/classroom buildings were retained. In one of the four plans an addition was added to the existing 1922 building in the location of the 1928 addition, removing the 1928 building.

One of the site plans showed purchasing the QFC property to the west of the RHS school property in addition to moving 66th to the south and extending the track/football field. The use of this land on the site plan was parking and a ninth grade academy building.

The fifth plan showed no track, but a football/soccer field, baseball field and softball field overlapping each other on the west side of the existing school property, running from north to south. This plan showed no additional purchase of land, the smallest amount of new parking, no tennis courts, an existing or new building in the gym location and a new addition to the existing 1922 building in the location of the 1928 addition.

After the presentation of the five site plans, we divided into three groups, and wrote on each site plan what we liked and disliked about each one. This information will be reviewed by NW Architects, and revised site plans prepared for review by the Design Review Committee. The purpose of these site plans is to have something for the Environmental Impact Statement preparers to work with. These site plans will drive the project only to the extent of whether additional land will be purchased. It is my understanding that an additional site plan will be prepared showing purchase of land to the south of RHS between 65th and 66th on the south-east corner. The key being that a regulation size track cannot fit on the site unless it runs north/south on the west end of the existing site. If this is a requirement, the cost of the additional land and street area purchase may negate the purchasing of additional land to the south of the main RHS building across 66th street.

The next meeting of the Design Review Committee will be the week of January 7th, date to be determined. This meeting will last 1/2 day and will consist of an orientation meeting for the DRC. Extensive discussion of the process will occur and the architect, Bassetti, will be introduced.