Harrison Elementary School to be demolished, school board decides

CEDAR RAPIDS — Harrison Elementary School will be demolished and a new building constructed on the site, the Cedar Rapids school board decided in a 6-1 vote Monday with Dexter Merschbrock opposing.

Under the plan, Madison Elementary School, 1341 Woodside Dr. NW, would close and the attendance zone combined with Harrison Elementary, 1310 11th St. NW. No decision has been made about the future of the Madison Elementary building or land.

The new concept deviates from two recommendations made earlier this month by a volunteer focus group based on an assessment of both schools from Legat Architects, an architecture firm in Iowa City.

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The new recommendation was made by Cedar Rapids schools administration following community feedback, according to a news release Friday from the district. It is not clear which administrators were involved in this decision.

“This recommendation to build new at the current Harrison location will provide a new future-ready learning environment for our students,” Superintendent Tawana Grover said in the news release Friday. “The new concept (will) address student enrollment considerations, reduce the overall cost for the project by one million dollars, and still allows for proximity to wrap-around services that our students and community need to be successful... This collaborative process demonstrates the district's desire to remain good stewards of taxpayers' dollars and honor the history of the Harrison building.”

The plan costs $28.9 million — $1 million less than the initial recommendation presented to the school board at an April 10 meeting. The cost includes:

“This recommendation will best serve our students, is fiscally responsible and will honor the historical elements of the existing Harrison building,” said Jon Galbraith, Cedar Rapids schools’ operations manager.

Harrison is one of seven schools in Cedar Rapids built before World War II, opening in 1930. The school contains a mural painted by a William Henning, a contemporary of Grant Wood, who is known for his depictions of the rural Midwest. School officials have said that mural will be preserved.

Members of the volunteer focus group spoke out against the new plan during public comment, saying they were only presented with two options: renovating and building an addition to Harrison Elementary or building a new school on the site of Madison Elementary and tearing down the current facility.

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Maura Pilcher, a community member on the focus group and director of the Grant Wood Art Colony at the University of Iowa, said she feels “disrespected” by the board’s decision. “Our months worth of work got overturned in days,” she said.

Pilcher said the task force meetings were “hours long,” during which time the volunteers “pored over all the facts” and even walked around Harrison Elementary with an architect.

“I took days off work — as did a lot of people — to do this work as a volunteer because I believe in this process,” Pilcher said.

Mark Stoffer Hunter, a historian and also a member of the focus group, said the school board “disregarded” months of work by volunteers.

Harrison Elementary students relocated during construction

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Students at Harrison Elementary will have to relocate during the 2024-25 school year while the new school is under construction.

One option is combining the attendance zone with Madison Elementary and adding temporary classrooms to that site. The other option is relocating Harrison Elementary students to open space in the district, such as Arthur or Garfield elementary schools, which will be vacant once Trailside Elementary School, under construction at 2630 B Ave. NE, is completed by fall 2024.

Students transported from the Harrison Elementary School attendance zone while the school is under construction will be provided transportation by the district at no cost.

There are about 285 students at Harrison Elementary and 180 at Madison.

Gathering community feedback

The district held community meetings earlier this month at Madison and Harrison elementary schools — attended by almost 100 people — to get feedback on the initial two options presented.

The focus group recommended in a 7-4 confidential vote a plan to renovate and build a 50,000-square-foot addition to Harrison Elementary School — almost doubling the space. Madison Elementary would then be closed and the schools’ attendance zones combined.

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The other option was building a new school on the site of Madison Elementary School, 1341 Woodside Dr. NW, and selling Harrison Elementary. Neither option included demolishing Harrison Elementary.

The cost to renovate and build an addition at Harrison Elementary, 1310 11th St. NW, was estimated at $29.9 million. Building a new school on the site of Madison was estimated to cost $28.4 million.

Another 100 people gave feedback through a community survey. The survey questions were: “What feedback would you like us to hear?” and “What questions do you have for the district?” Galbraith said.

Based on the feedback, community members want a new school, are concerned about the cost of remodeling Harrison Elementary and value the community services — including before- and after-school care — in the Harrison Elementary neighborhood, Galbraith said.

“I’m concerned we haven’t had a chance for community feedback on the third option,” school board member Jennifer Borcherding said before voting to move forward with a new school at the Harrison elementary site.

Borcherding motioned to postpone the decision until the next board meeting on May 8. The motion was seconded by Merschbrock, but ultimately failed. President David Tominsky, vice president Cindy Garlock, and school board members Nancy Humbles, Jennifer Neumann and Marcy Roundtree voted against postponing the decision.

New elementary schools

This would be the fourth new elementary school built under a 2018 facilities master plan that calls for 10 new elementary schools and three renovated ones over the next 15 to 20 years. This process includes the closure and repurposing of eight schools.

New elementary schools are expected to decrease operational costs for the district and address uneven distribution of resources. The work has been funded by SAVE — Secure an Advanced Vision for Education — an existing statewide sales tax.

The cost of the three other new elementary schools totals about $82 million. Construction of West Willow Elementary School, completed in fall 2021, cost $26.1 million. Maple Grove, completed in fall 2022, cost $24.1 million. And Trailside Elementary School — currently under construction — is estimated to cost $31.9 million.

“It is clear to me that we are missing an opportunity to consider alternative options to both save money and make alternative investments that will showcase the values of the district and provide additional fiscal benefits,” Merschbrock said. “For example, for the five buildings considered so far, a $10 million dollar investment in each building, along with a $10 million investment in solar panels, would have totaled just $60 million. That would represent a 25 percent savings on the cost so far, totaling $22 million dollars.”

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