Domes at Harding, Taft middle schools all reopen

CEDAR RAPIDS — The last of four domes closed last year at Cedar Rapids middle schools for safety reasons reopened Thursday following months of repairs.

The domes at Taft and Harding middle schools were closed in October and students were moved to other parts of the buildings as repairs were made to deteriorating wood beams supporting each dome. There are two domes at each of the schools, with 16 beams supporting each dome.

A dome at Harding Middle that houses the gymnasium reopened Thursday, marking the completion of the project. The second dome at Taft was completed at the beginning of February, and classes finally returned to normal.

On Oct. 11, Cedar Rapids Community School District officials announced the evacuation and closure of Taft’s east dome after an inspection found it was unstable. Two weeks later, the district announced it was closing the second dome at Taft, 5200 E Ave. NW, and both domes at Harding Middle School, 4801 Golf St. NE.

The two middle schools were constructed in 1965 using the same design that features two domes.

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The closure of the Taft and Harding domes impacted more than 1,000 sixth- through eighth-grade students in the Cedar Rapids district. For months outside the schools, fences surrounded the domes with signs that read “do not enter.”

At the recommendation by engineers, construction crews created metal “flyswatters” — metal plates made of red iron steel that resemble flyswatters — to shore up each beam.

Crews from McComas-Lacina Construction of Iowa City worked for almost four months to install metal plates to the wooden beam structures, and then weld them to metal anchors attached to the concrete footings around the domes.

Each metal plate has 25 screws that are then welded. A C-channel — basically a metal rectangle — attaches the metal plate to the metal anchors attached to the concrete footings. Combined, these weigh 500 pounds each.

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The wood that makes up the columns was removed and replaced with a steel tube.

“We won’t have a problem with this part of the columns ever again. I can comfortably say the base of the columns will outlast the rest of the building,” Chris Gates, Cedar Rapids schools’ buildings and grounds manager, told The Gazette in November 2023.

As repairs were made to the domes, band and orchestra students at Taft practiced in the school’s front entryway. Lunch was eaten in the hallway and some classrooms. Physical education classes were held in the library or outside when the weather allowed. Classes also met in portable classrooms outside each school.

The domes were repaired with funds from the district’s Physical Plant and Equipment Levy, a capital projects fund for the purchase and improvement of grounds, purchase, construction and remodeling of buildings and major equipment purchases, including technology.

The district does not yet know the final cost of the project.

This fall, voters in the district will be asked to consider extending the Physical Plant and Equipment Levy for an additional 10 years. This vote will go to voters in September.

The district will ask for $1.34 for every $1,000 of taxable valuation, creating between $10 to $12 million in revenue for the district. That includes the 33 cents the district is allowed to spend on its own.

If approved, the extension would not raise the existing PPEL tax rate. However, it still wouldn’t create enough revenue for the district to build new schools — but it is important for maintaining buildings.

These funds support the maintenance and upkeep of the Cedar Rapids schools’ 425 acres and 2.7 million square feet of building space. This includes:

In the last decade, more than $100 million in PPEL was spent on infrastructure in the Cedar Rapids district. The district keeps an online record of the hundreds of projects completed with funds from PPEL at crschools.us/departments/operations/building-grounds/physical-plant-equipment-levy.

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