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Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
City panel tables Cedar Rapids school district’s request to rezone Harrison Elementary as district pauses plan
District officials pause plan to rebuild school, demolish historic structure as they pursue community feedback
CEDAR RAPIDS — A contentious plan to demolish Harrison Elementary School and build a new facility on the site will be paused for more community feedback, the Cedar Rapids Community School District’s operations official said Thursday, as a city panel sent the district back to firm up its plan.
Cedar Rapids’ City Planning Commission, in a unanimous vote of the six members present, tabled the district’s request to rezone the 5.8-acre site at 1310 11th St. NW from Traditional Residential Single Unit to Public Institutional District to allow for construction of a new school after demolition of the existing structure.
This request was submitted Nov. 2, before the school district’s $220 million bond referendum was defeated by voters. The bond would have funded a new middle school at an undisclosed location and other facilities improvements across the district. The Harrison closure was not part of the bond issue, but was a point of contention among many voters in the district’s push for support.
To improve operational efficiencies, the district’s facilities master plan calls for transitioning to larger elementary schools in neighborhood locations. The new school would serve the combined areas that currently serve students attending Harrison and Madison Elementary on Woodside Drive NW.
Chad Schumacher, the school district’s operations director, said the district is reviewing proposals from firms that would help assess the facilities plan, understand why voters opposed it, and receive input from Harrison and Madison elementary families on how to move forward with the Harrison building. He said the district will not put plans out to bid until there’s a clear vision with the neighborhood.
“We heard loud and clear through a 60 no to a 40 yes vote on our last bond issue,” Schumacher said. “We are dedicated to revitalizing the community with new schools or renovated schools in this city.”
After City Zoning Administrator Seth Gunnerson said he wasn’t informed of the district’s plan to pause the project, commission members moved to table their recommendation until the district lands on a plan. Before sending the rezoning request to the Cedar Rapids City Council for consideration, Gunnerson said it needs to be clear to the elected officials what they’re voting on and how the neighborhood would be engaged in the decision.
Commission member Fred Timko said the panel considers rezonings by looking at factors such as parking, stormwater retention, the site plan and fit with the neighborhood. Before proceeding with demolition, Timko — who has redeveloped historic properties — said he would like the district to seriously look at reusing the building and convince people that it’s not worth saving.
“We’ve got this preliminary plan in front of us that may or may not survive,” Timko said. “If they’re going to pause and take a sincere look at an alternative, I think we should wait and see what they really want to propose.”
Some members of the commission and community providing public comment were confused as to whether the district was truly pausing the plan while still bringing the request forward to the commission. But district officials said they wanted to seek permission now to ensure a school can be built there.
The primary objective of approaching the commission was “to make sure that we can rezone the Harrison site so that a school can exist there,” Superintendent Tawana Grover told The Gazette.
“That is going to be critical if we want to have a school in the Northwest Neighborhood,” Grover said.
Historic preservation concerns
Historic preservation advocates, led by local nonprofit Save CR Heritage, have adamantly opposed demolition of the school, which was opened in 1930 to replace an earlier Harrison Elementary that was destroyed in a fire the year prior. The structure has English Tudor style features and exterior detailing, and may be eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places.
City historic preservation code states that any demolition permit has to be reviewed by the Historic Preservation Commission, which may put a 60-day hold on the demolition to document the building, buy time to seek alternatives and conserve historic details.
The applicant could appeal a 60-day hold on demolition to the council. If the commission decided not to put a hold on it, that likely also could be appealed. Gunnerson said there’s no path for the city to deny a demolition permit, a process handled by the Building Services Department.
District officials have maintained construction and maintenance of a new school would be more cost effective than renovating the existing property and building an expansion. They have said they would preserve a 22-foot mural painted in 1935, and incorporate existing architectural elements such as windows, signage and quoins — exterior detailing — into the new structure.
The new school and other elementary school improvements would be funded through Secure an Advanced Vision for Education (SAVE), an existing statewide school infrastructure sales and services tax.
Grover said the board’s previous decision to build a new school on the Harrison site came from conversations with families in the area and a survey indicating “a true need for that community to have a school there” — a new one in that location.
Enlisting a firm to review facilities — including Harrison and Madison — will help the school board get more feedback in the facility planning process, Grover said. Community members, including city officials, can be involved in the discussions to understand both the district’s and city’s needs and projected growth.
“Once you take a wrecking ball to it, you can’t get it back,” Grover said. “It’s better for us to have that feedback as we continue to make decisions about our facilities.”
Once there’s enough data to determine a course of action, Schumacher said the district will release plans for school board approval, then hire a contractor. If construction started in July, he said work would likely finish by December 2025. This timeline is tentative while other alternatives are considered.
Some question district planning
After the 2008 flood and the 2020 derecho devastated the Northwest Neighborhood, Therese Smith, a board member with Save CR Heritage, said neighbors do not want the iconic school to be destroyed and replaced with a generic building.
“Voters in November sent a strong message when they resoundingly rejected the school district's bond referendum, and while Harrison was not included on that measure, we have heard from residents who said their opposition was in response to the school board's still-unexplained vote to demolish the school,” Smith said.
Ann Rosenthal, who was previously on the Cedar Rapids school board and has engineering experience, said this building is worth preserving because of its history despite the costs. After Schumacher mentioned the district’s pause, Rosenthal said rezoning seems premature and the district was not being forthright.
“It’s hard to know what the school district is planning at this point,” Rosenthal said.
Don Taylor, who’s part of the Northwest Neighbors Neighborhood Association and served on a committee that made a recommendation on Harrison’s location, spoke in favor of the rezoning and how it could positively influence the flood-devastated neighborhood’s revitalization.
“It's really important to realize that whether they rebuild a building or whether they tear or they remodel the one they have isn’t what we're talking about,” Taylor said. “What we're talking about is the ability to do either one.”
Comments: (319) 398-8494; marissa.payne@thegazette.com
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