Kansas City Morning News
March 2010
Westport High
School KCMO Closing
The Kansas City
School Board narrowly approved a difficult decision closing 26 schools
in the district with a 5 to 4 vote on Wednesday, March 10, 2010. An
effort to cut $50 million from the
shrunken district's budget. The high schools that were included in the closings
are Westport High School (Program to move to Southwest) and Southeast High @
Manual. Middle schools included
Westport Middle School. Elementary schools included Swinney (program to move
to Carver)
Taken from the artical by Joe Robertson and Meredith Rodriguez The Kansas City
Star.
Westport High School could be "recycled"
The
Kansas City School District hopes to recycle closed buildings. Officials
want to find worthy buyers and suitable functions for the structures they are
padlocking. The district's Chief Operating Officer (previously with the St.
Louis School District) Roosevelt Brown Jr. plans to establish a repurposing
committee
by the end of April that includes city officials, architects and planners.
The committee will oversee the future of all of the closed school
buildings. Seven
schools will be mothballed for future reuse by students should the school district
reverse it's enrollment decline. (Westport High School is not one of the schools
being concidered at this time to be held in reserve should the enrollment decline
reverse). Some schools will be sold for redevelopment. Still other schools
may wind up being demolished and made into parks.
Mr. Brown has had experience with developers repositioning buildings as senior
citizen housing. For historic properties there are state and federal tax credits,
and state tax credits are available for housing projects. Mr. Brown said the
district would seek creative ideas from it's repurposing committee. We will
work with the community and this committee will make sure something is done
with these
buildings. It will meet not just for weeks or months, but for years until the
last building has been repurposed. All over the U.S. former schools are being
converted to a range of uses. Community centers, office buildings, churches,
residential projects, apartment buildings. etc. Schools are well built with
ample corridors and a very straightforward layout of halls and rooms.
Taken from the article by Kevin Collison The Kansas City Star
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