About those auditoriums at Burns and Crest – Shelby Star

Dustin George|The Shelby Star

For years it has been impossible to discuss any school improvement or construction projects without someone asking about new auditoriums for Burns and Crest high schools. Those questions, the district believes, may soon be a thing of the past.

Last week the Department of Public Instruction announced a $15 million grant to Cleveland County Schools to fund construction of new auditoriums at Burns and Crest. The grant comes along with a $5 million commitment from the district to pay for the auditoriums, bringing the total budget for the projects up to $20 million.

Promises kept

News of the state grant has comeas a relief to those who might one day get a chance to perform in the long-promised auditoriums.

"This will be a game changer," said Burns choir director Amy Jones. "The students will get to practice in their performance space and as a musician thats wonderful,that means a lot.

For years fine and performing arts groups at the two high schools have had to either find locations outside of the school to perform or host events in their respective gyms. Jones typically takes her students to Lawndale Baptist Church for their semi-annual concerts. Choir groups at Crest often perform at Gardner-Webb University.

Its very discouraging to give a concert in the gym as a student, especially when we travel and go-to music performance adjudication at other places, and these other schools have this immaculate auditorium and then come back and give a concert in the gym," said Burns band director Hoy Colson. "I feel like we have pretty high interest in band and orchestra, I think (the auditorium) would make it a stronger thing, the want to be in band or orchestra or to stay in band or orchestra.

More than just a place to practice or perform, Colson said new auditoriums would provide a new way for schools to host special productions and meetings of the school body as a whole.

"Currently in the gym whoever is doing a presentation is on a microphone and the sound just bounces off the walls and its a snowball effect of loudness. Its really hard to focus on what is being projected," he said. "During a pep rally thats one thing, you have someone on a microphone yelling and trying to get everyone excited; but when someone is giving a lecture or when someone gives a presentation on school safety or something like that its hard to hear what they are saying. And its a lot harder to monitor students in a gymnasium than in an auditorium.

Bumpy starts

In 2016 the county school board voted to approve work on projects that would ultimately lead to new auditoriums being built. That vote led to a series of community meetings with school staff, board members and community members. That same school year the board also selected Holland & Hamrick Architects to design the auditoriums and land surveys of the schools were completed in the 2018-19 school year.Since then, work on the auditoriums has appeared to stall.

I think funding has been the major factor that has taken the time in the process," said Stephen Fisher, schools superintendent.Really over the last three or four years this has grown, and we are really excited about the funding option now. From our end it makes sense, and we appreciate the partnership from DPI and the General Assembly.

While it is impossible to know the final cost of construction until the project is out for bids, Fisher said he believes $20 million is enough to build a pair of auditoriums.

Even with money from the state, Cleveland County Schools still has a few hurdles to clear before shovels can go in the ground. Among the biggest issues is where to put new buildings.

Burns and Crest have near-identical internal layouts but the land each sits on is different and all of it is in use for parking, sports or other academic programs.

We are taking time to think about how that can really work, what are the intended and unintended consequences of using that land to put down an auditorium," said Fisher. "If we can use this opportunity to improve our existing traffic setup or parking setup we are trying to really take a strategic approach to how we do this.

Next steps

Over the next several weeks, architects toHolland & Hamrick will begin submitting drawings and design documents for the auditoriums to the school board's Facilities Committee. Once the designs are approved by the committee they will be presented to the full board for final approval.

When the board decides it is happy with the submitted plans, the district can begin soliciting bids from contractors interested in building the auditoriums. The board will have final say in what contractor ultimately gets the project.

Hopefully within the next month, we can kind of firm up the timeline of when those next big steps can happen," said Fisher.

Dustin George can be reached at 704-669-3337 or Dustin.George@ShelbyStar.com. Find him on Twitter @DustinLGeorge.

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About those auditoriums at Burns and Crest - Shelby Star