The plan for a 265,000-square-foot Franklin High School complex for up to 1,400 students was on display for the public to view at the Robert C. Carpenter Community Center on Thursday, Oct. 19.
The unveiling was the first time the public saw a new rendering of Franklin High School in over a year.
Macon County’s architectural firm LS3P presented renderings, a scale model, booklets, video and a virtual reality tour. LS3P Senior Vice President Paul Boney estimated 80-100 people came to the four-hour drop-in session.
“I was just overwhelmed with the public support for this project and the need to move ahead to build this project as quickly as possible,” Boney said the following day. “I thought it was a great meeting. I look forward to scheduling more in the future.”
As for when the next meeting would take place, Boney estimated it would be in January, after the holiday season.
The entire campus would be ADA-accessible. Boney said that was one of the more frequent questions he got from the public.
“I personally like the interaction of a meeting like this; we’re able to talk to people and find out what their questions are, and we answer them the best we can,” Boney said.
School specs
The 265,000-square-foot campus would be double the 131,308 square footage of the dozen buildings that comprise the current FHS. Except for the stadium’s press box, field house, visitors’ locker room and CTE storage buildings, the school would be one building.
Features of the building include a three-story academic wing, serviced by elevators and stairs. The first floor of the academic wing would have CTE spaces, such as automotive, welding, carpentry, agriculture, aviation/robotics, foods and more. Outside, near these spaces, there would be a greenhouse, school equipment yard and CTE storage buildings.
The second floor would have English and history classrooms, CTE labs, health occupations, public safety, and apparel. The third floor would have science labs and math classrooms. A second-floor enclosed pedestrian bridge would connect the academic wing to the cafeteria.
The main wing’s first floor would comprise administration, health clinic and guidance near the front, and seven classrooms for Bartram Academy. The former Union Academy would move from its Union Drive location upon completion.
The cafeteria would include a terraced staircase. Above Bartram would be the media center, adjacent to the art and language classrooms.
The main gymnasium would have 1,500 seats on two sides. The bleachers would be electronically retractable with four extra basketball goals to create two full courts. The auxiliary gym next door would have 250 seats.
Exceptional Children’s classrooms would be at the front of the building, providing easy access to the front parking lot. There are 624 parking spaces planned, 250 more than there are currently.
A practice field would be built on what is now the front lawn of the high school, along Porter Street, with pedestrian sidewalks leading to it from the main part of campus.
The design includes a 450-seat auditorium, plus nearby band, chorus/theater and set design rooms.
One of the changes in the last year was moving a planned field house from one end of the stadium so that it is adjacent to the new building. The field house would be right across from the new weight room. There would be several locker rooms on the lower level underneath the home stands.
The 3,400-seat stadium would include a press box, an eight-lane track, visitors’ locker rooms and walkways. The field now used for band practice and overflow parking would become a retention pond. Boney said this would fix drainage issues in the current football stadium.
Panther Drive, which separates the academic buildings from the stadium and student parking lot, would be eliminated in the new school campus.
Seeking state grant funding
The next step after public input is to finalize a financing plan for the Local Government Commissioner to approve. According to a timeline presented in September to the Macon County Board of Commissioners, that would happen in March at the earliest.
Besides more community input sessions, Boney said one of the main focuses will be the county applying for the Needs-Based Public School Fund grant, which could help cover most of the construction cost, estimated at $100 million-plus.
An applicant can now receive up to $62 million for a school project, per the new state budget. This is an increase from the previous $50 million maximum grant award for a high school.
According to Boney, the grant application window starts Nov. 13 and runs just under two months through Jan. 5, 2024. Notification of receiving the grant is scheduled for early February, after 30 days.
“LS3P, the school board and the commissioners are working together to get a grant application completed for $62 million,” Boney said.
According to the bill, Macon County would have to put up a 15% match for any Needs-Based Public School Fund grant received, which for $62 million would be $9.3 million.
The current plan has a construction timeline starting in the spring after the state approves the project’s financing. The plan would be to construct the new school while the current school remains in session from spring 2024 onward. The athletics complex, known as Phase One, would take an estimated 16 months to complete and hopefully be done by summer 2025, in time for the fall 2025 football season. The academic building, known as Phase Two, would take an estimated 30 months to complete and hopefully be ready for the First Day of School in August 2026. These plans are contingent on county commissioner and school board approvals.