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Progress toward a New Watauga High School

Site Selection
On July 25, 2006, the Board of Education and the Watauga County Commissioners both unanimously endorsed the purchase of land for a new Watauga High School and a plan for the sale of the current Watauga High School. The property is referred to as the Perkinsville site and is located in the vicinity of Old 421 and Daniel Boone Drive, just west and north of a portion of the Greenway trail. The purchase of the site was completed early in 2007.

The 94 acre Perkinsville site offers an opportunity to locate a recreation center on the same property, possibly providing future students with safe and convenient access to a pool and other recreational facilities. In addition to lower cost, another major advantage of building on a new site, as opposed to a previous plan to build the new school on the existing site, is that it avoids the disruptions, distractions, and potential dangers of having a major construction project in progress for several years at Watauga High School. Building on a new site also offers much more flexibility in developing a site plan and designing the building.

Two other sites for a new high school received serious consideration, but both alternatives were smaller, had a lower proportion of usable land, would require much higher costs for grading and other site preparation work, and lacked ready access to water and sewer facilities. Because of their smaller size and more challenging topography, these sites also could not accommodate a recreation center.

Project Plan and Timetable
In February, 2007, the Watauga County Board of Education and Watauga County Commissioners endorsed a preliminary site plan recommended by the planning team for the new high school. The planning team, which continues to meet to review plans and progress for the new high school, includes high school faculty and administrators, parents, students, elected officials from the County Commissioners and Board of Education, Superintendent Dr. Bobbie Short, and representatives from the County Manager’s office and the central office of the Watauga County Schools.

Some of the key features of the new building include more and larger classrooms, a larger cafeteria and food preparation area that will make food services much more efficient and inviting, and a more easily secured and monitored building. The plan also includes a football stadium and other athletic fields, an 800 seat auditorium, and about 1,000 parking spaces, up from about 650 at the current site. The site plan reserves a portion of the 94 acre site for a possible recreation center. An updated version of the site plan was reviewed at a public meeting May 23 in the Watauga High School auditorium.

“Green” design elements being considered for the new high school include extensive use of daylighting; a system to capture, store, and distribute storm water for non-potable uses; highly efficient (possibly geothermal based) space heating and cooling systems; and solar hot water heating. These features, along with the substantial improvements in windows, building insulation, and construction methods that have become standard since the current high school was constructed some 40 years ago, will result in greatly reduced energy costs and much improved comfort at the new high school.

The project schedule anticipates that building design will be completed in the summer of 2007 and that construction will begin in early spring of 2008. Construction is expected to be completed in the spring of 2010, allowing school personnel to move into the building during the summer of 2010. The new Watauga High School will open for students at the start of the 2010-2011 school year. Under this timetable, this year’s eighth graders will be the first class to graduate from the new school.

A “construction manager at-risk” will oversee construction and ensure the new high school is completed on time and within the budget. The construction manager at-risk for the project is Barnhill/Vannoy, a partnership between Barnhill Contracting, which has considerable experience with the at-risk approach in other school districts, and Vannoy and Sons, which has experience building schools in this part of the state.

Environmental, archeological, geological, and historical studies have been conducted on the site. Research has indicated there are no significant archaeological sites on the property and there are also no records of endangered plants or animals on the site. As with most land in this region, there is some stone on the site but it does not appear to pose a major obstacle to the planned use of the property. It appears there is a small family cemetery on the site with up to 19 graves. This cemetery will be relocated in accord with state law and with due respect for the deceased. Persons believed to be descendants of the deceased are participating in the discussions about where to relocate the graves.

Traffic studies have been conducted to determine the best access points and to identify where road and traffic control improvements are needed. Local officials have asked the NC Department of Transportation to advance the planned widening of U.S. 421 so that the project might be completed before the high school opens in August of 2010. Input from the neighborhoods surrounding the site has also been solicited and will continue to be a factor in shaping both the site plan and in plans for handling traffic to and from the high school.

Project Costs and Financing
The total project cost, including land purchase, site preparation, design costs, construction of the new high school, and replacement of the athletic facilities available at the current high school, is estimated at $65,000,000. Most of the cost will be paid for by funds from the sale of the current high school. The cost of building furnishings and most computer-related technology are not included in the cost estimate.

Using a conservative estimate of the price of the current high school property ($32,000,000), the net cost of the new school is estimated to be about $33,000,000, at least $10,000,000 less than the previously considered alternative of building a new high school on the current site.

The portion of project costs not paid for by the sale of the current site will be financed by revenues from the incremental property tax for education previously approved by the County Commissioners. That tax was originally set at 4.5 cents per $100 of property value, but dropped to 3.41 cents under the “revenue neutral” tax rates adopted following the property revaluation that takes effect for 2006-07. The lower tax rate of 3.41 cents will generate the same amount of money as the previous 4.5 cent rate. The 3.41 cents is part of (not in addition to) the 31.3 cent total property tax rate for Watauga County.