Design Plans for New Southwest High ‘Dignified’
By Julie Hubbard, The Macon Telegraph, Ga.
May 9–A trio of Marietta architects won over Bibb County school officials at a school board committee meeting Tuesday after they unveiled design plans for the new Southwest High School.
About $31.9 million of a current $165 million countywide special penny sales tax will be used to rebuild Southwest, located off Canterbury Road in Macon.
Students now attend classes in three separate buildings at Southwest, some of which are about 50 years old.
“This is for part of a community that often thinks they are overlooked,” school board member Terry Tripp said after the presentation. “They will love it.”
Edward Boyen, a designer for BRPH Inc. of Marietta hired to design the new Southwest High, said the roughly 190,000-square-foot school might have a classic-style design to reflect Macon’s downtown architecture.
His firm studied several of Macon’s building designs, such as Alexander II Magnet School, for influence.
Some board members described the proposed new look for Southwest as “stately” and “dignified.”
“It sends the message that what we’re doing in this building is dignified,” board member Susan Middleton said.
The school, a magnet law academy, will feature an open courtyard with a small amphitheater, a career academy wing, a new courtroom and a two-story gymnasium with an upper-level walking track. Part of the new Southwest also will have two separate floors.
The school is being built to accommodate the latest classroom technology, such as smart boards and projection screens, which have replaced dry erase boards.
“The school’s staff put a lot of thought into what they wanted,” Boyen said.
Raynette Evans, the system’s athletic director and a 1973 Southwest graduate, said the new school will give students a boost in morale and “make people have a positive perception of the school.”
Site work and some demolition at the school is scheduled to begin this summer, with construction expected to start early next year. The school board Tuesday hired Parrish Construction Group of Perry and Paul Harmon of Macon as the construction managers for the project. The new school will be built where McEvoy Middle School currently sits. That school will be torn down early next year, and those students will move to the new Ballard Hudson Middle School on Anthony Road.
The old Southwest building will be demolished to make room for a parking area and athletic fields. The new school is scheduled to open in 2009.
School officials said they likely will keep the current school’s law academy building that was built in the 1980s, but they aren’t sure what program would be housed there.
A meeting will be held next Tuesday to unveil the plans to the community, school officials said.
To contact Julie Hubbard, call 744-4331.
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Copyright (c) 2007, The Macon Telegraph, Ga.
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