The public had an opportunity to view the preliminary schematic design drawings and pose their questions about  the new Junction City High School project Saturday.

The Chief Operations Officer for USD 475, David Wild, said it provided real time feedback with open dialogue between the viewers and the architects.  Wild said the proposed design of the school has emerged over several months. “This is several months worth of analysis and needs assessment that’s been done.”

Wild noted suggestions on improvements from the public included a lot of interest in a natatorium. “Those kind of things, there’s a lot of interest about the placement there, how that may all fit together, the rationale. That all really ties in to the desire for a top loading gymnasium and football stadium.”

Architect Trey Hertel noted the public had some questions and concerns about where some of the spaces are relative to one another. “They talked about the Freshman Success Academy wing and where that should be in relationship to the rest of the building. Parking lots, how do those all work and flow with each other.” Hertel added a parking count has not been designed. “We’re trying to get input from everybody so we can determine how much parking we really do need.”

On specific facilities Hertel estimated that they are considering an auditorium capable of seating 900 people, approximately 2,000 to 2,400 bleacher seats in the gym and 3,000 to 5,000 seats in the football stadium. “Now people just don’t want to just sit in a seat, they want to move within a stadium itself, so there may be opportunities that we could create other types of seating formats and put that within the stadium so that’s something we’re exploring a little bit.” He also commented that there could potentially be some tailgating events at both ends of the bowls. That could allow more flow of people, “and have more open tailgating kind of concept during the game. That’s very popular versus just sitting in a grandstand for the ent