Project Update - September 2023

 The construction started early Spring at West View Elementary School. During the summer contractors were able to complete the renovation of the restrooms and work in the existing classrooms prior to the kids returning. Most of the masonry and steel structure is complete for the additions. The install of the exterior brick façade has started. The installation of mechanical, plumbing, and electrical systems is in progress on the interior. The project is still scheduled to be completed by the end of 2023.

Project Status - February 2023

 

Muncie Community Schools received bids on December 20, 2022 from multiple contractors. CORE Construction and Schmidt Associates Inc. has reviewed the bids and provided a recommendation to move forward with the base bid work and accept 5 of the 12 alternates. The alternates that were not accepted are site related with a possibility of adding them towards the end of the project. The contractors have started to submit materials for approval and ordering. The construction trailer and fencing will be delivered and installed in the next couple of weeks. Construction on the new additions will begin in March.

Project Status - December 2022

The design team has completed the design for the addition and renovation project for West View Elementary School. CORE Construction has distributed the documents to the contractors for bidding. We had a walkthrough on 11/29 for the contractors to see the building. Muncie Community Schools will receive bids on 12/20. Look for the results in the next post. 

July 27, 2022 - Site Design Meeting

 
On Tuesday, July 27, 2022, the design team met with Muncie Community Schools to review the site design. The site design proposed included two parking lot areas to the South and a separate drop off loop near the gym. This allows for additional capacity for drop off and parking to the south side of the building and adds a separation of car riders from the buses. It was decided during the meeting to look at an option that moved the parking closer to the building and function as the drop off loop. Schmidt Associates is going to develop that option for review in the next meeting. The other focus of discussion was the existing playgrounds and how they are modified for the new layout. The smaller playground to the east will have a new fence and sidewalk leading to the entrance. This will help with the safety of the kids with the added traffic. The west playground will be enlarging its hard surface play area to the south of the play equipment. The new hard surface will have basketball goals and the school will stripe the asphalt for additional activities.

July 6, 2022 - Design meeting

 

On Wednesday, July 06, 2022, the design team met with Muncie Community Schools to review the progress of the site and floor plan. The site plan shows replacement of the existing parking lot on the south and adding a new 53 parking spot parking lot. The new drop off loop allows for 29 vehicles staged along the drive. The floor plan shows two new classroom additions on the south side of the east and west wings. There are also plans for an addition to the admin area to increase the size of the clinic.

Project Kickoff Meeting

On Wednesday, March 16, 2022, Ron Fisher, AIA, LEED AP, and Ryan Benson, AIA led the staff of West View Elementary School through an information gathering process. This process consisted of three parts. The first ten to fifteen minutes allowed each staff member in attendance providing private, individual feedback comments on the current facility. The second ten to fifteen minutes allowed small groups of staff to summarize their individual feedback comments and synthesize them into the top five group feedback comments; the prompt for this group exercise was, “please give us 5 things that you think we should know as we look at the planning for renovations at West View Elementary.” Finally, in the final ten to fifteen minutes, each group was asked to report on their five items. These items were tallied on a flip chart by Ryan Benson. Each time the same or similar item was mentioned, this was also noted. The items on the flip chart represent the summary of the feedback comments from the staff gathered at this event.

The following list indicates the items summarized in the flip charts; a number in parenthesis represents the number of times this items was mentioned by each group.

•         Teachers’ Lounge w/ Kitchen (4)
•          Accessible Library/Media Center (2)
•          Corridor Lockers (1)
•          Locker Rooms for sports (1)
•          More Staff Restrooms (1)
•          Space for indoor recess (1)
•          Sensory/Safe Space (2)
•          More general storage (3)
•          Larger Cafeteria (1)
•          Resource/Intervention (3)
•          Carpet in Classrooms (1)
•          Bigger Nurse Clinic (1)
•          Recessed Electrical devices (1)
•          Usable Stage for performances (1)
•          Age-appropriate Pre-K finishes (1)

All responses, including individual, group, and flip chart were collected and will be analyzed in the planning for the West View Elementary School project.

Thanks to all the staff for your participation!

Blog Foreword

Welcome to the West View Elementary School Blog!  The notes and posts that will be included in this blog are the results of field work and community meetings to review and discuss the needs of the school.  These posts will represent the work-in-progress and document the discussions that will transpire.