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HomeMy WebLinkAboutPINECONE PUD FORT COLLINS HIGH SCHOOL SITE PLAN ADVISORY REVIEW - 60 91B - MEDIA - CORRESPONDENCE (2)Novelplan will put Nkh,.school in 10"acre shopping mall By Dawn Capewell "We're trying to break the mold. Special to The Denver Post We absolutely will not build a con - A novel plan by school officials and developers may create a high school heaven, where students would have a 10-acre shopping mall and 20-acre park beside their new Fort Collins High School. When Poudre R-1 School Dis- trict officials began looking for a site for new high school, they found that W.W. Reynolds also had designs on land at Timberline and Horsetooth roads. Timberline Partners, controlled by W.W. Reynolds, owned the land and planned to build a mall there. Poudre R-1 wanted to build a school on the site. Now developers and school offi- cials have decided to do both, cre- ating one of the first developments of its kind. ventional school," said school board member Jerry Dunn. Students could work in the mall and learn anything from how to or- der napkins to how to take a cus- tomer's order,.said John Brzeinski, principal of Fort Collins High. If the school board approves the partnership, the $30 million school would be built under the same roof as the mall. The city is being asked to sweeten the deal by creating a 20-acre park for students and resi- dents. School board members have been asked to close the deal — thus locking themselves into the partnership — Feb. 19. The 67-E- acre site would cost $1.004 million. Voters approved a bond issue last November to finance the school, which would open in September 1995. Some school officials and par- ents are baffled by the concept of housing businesses and classrooms under one roof, said school board member John Drennen. "We're flying by radar a little bit," he acknowledged, but poten- tial benefits to students justify the experiment. Students and parents would lin- ger a little longer at the complex, be predicted. "A parent attending an adult literacy class can stop off right afterwards at King Soopers, then pick up a kid who's at a tutor- ing class or wherever. Open your mind up a little bit." `We absolutelywill not build a conventional school.' - - Educators also predict these benefits: ■ Because the businesses would pay part of the tab, the schoak dis- trict would save $250,000 to $750,000 on water pipes, sewer lines and other essentials, said Kirk Douglas of Harlan, Myles & Douglas, a Denver real estate firm' consulting for the project ■ The school board would have the right to control students whether they're in the classroom or McDonald's. Administrators now can't control students when they leave campus, Brzeinski said. Though it seems unusual to Jerry Dunn, school board member place a school next to a burger joint, Timberline isn't exactly do- ing traditional business either, said Jerry Lee, Reynolds' vice presi- dent. Almost never would a company let another group control land use on a prize parcel, Lee. said '.'It's scary to have somebody else have some control over property we al- ready own." But it could give businesses a chance to help students hone basic work skills, said Rich Feller, pro- fessor of career development at Colorado State University. He said companies interested only in cheap student labor should be avoided, however. "Companies that want kids to chrome bumpers or sling burgers would not be g Fo'rthe project to work, the dis- trict would need to recruit busi- nesses that want to invest in stu- dents for years to come, not )alit while profits are high, Feller said. A similar business-educatio partnership has been launched the Minneapolis area. Schooilt from five districts will have kids in kindergarten through third grade, plus llth and 12th grades, take their classes in suites in the nation's biggest shopping center, the Mall of America, after it opens in August. "Schools have to get booked up to the real world," said Ginny Pease, a research assistant with the National Center for Researck in Vocational Education at the University of Minnesota. When the mall opens in August, parents who work there will bene, fit, too, by having their children nearby, said Arlene Bush, presi- dent of the Bloomington (Minn.) school board.