‘To Build or Not to Build’ – that’s not just the million dollar question, it’s the $85 million dollar question charged to the Junction City High School Steering Committee.
Photo Courtesy of City of Junction City, KS website
The committee met Thursday evening and toured the existing high school facilities and bore witness to the undeniable infrastructure issues – the building is over 58 years old.
Mick McCallister, Junction City Mayor, suggested switching the high school and middle school locations, noting that all options should be considered before the committee.
“If there is a better option of putting the high school on the outside of the boundaries of the city…well, we need to look at the option,” said McCallister. “I don’t know if that option has been looked at, I don’t know if it can fit that site.”
McCallister felt that it was a bad idea to put the middle school in that location, and since most high school students drive to school, switching the locations may be a viable option.
“What I saw tonight was an old structure that needed a lot of work; could it be fixed – yes it could be fixed, could it be expanded – yes it could be expanded, but if we’re going to do something and do it on a grand scale and we can work the financing and the money piece out to where it’s not going to cost taxpayers money, then we need to give the community the best possible building we could give them,” said McCallister who added that [we] still needed to look at whether renovating or building new is the best possibility.
The Mayor mentioned another idea that has been brought to his attention on more than one occasion.
“I’ve had more than a couple of constituents ask where this land is going to come from, and what was thrown out there was, ‘well why wouldn’t they take all of these 1940s and 1950s homes from Jefferson to Jackson, from 8th to 14th…buy the properties…we’ve got plenty of land bank lots, they could build new and they’d be in a newer home, and these older 70 and 80 year old homes could be demolished’,” said McCallister. “It was a concept that, I don’t know if it has any traction or if it even has any merit; but it sure would be a good piece of property for 120 acres.”
Concepts for JCHS range from a new high school on the same site, renovating the current building, and a new high school at another location.
These option, amongst others will continue to be reviewed by the Steering Committee; no final decisions have been made at this time.