A Look at the New Phoenixville Middle School

Though the impressive new $56 million, 200,000 square foot Phoenixville Area Middle School still looks—and, with some drying paint, smells—like a work in progress, district executive director of operations Stan Johnson says it will be ready to go on August 27, when students arrive for the first day of classes.

Johnson led a group of community members and press on a tour of the facility on Wednesday. Here are the highlights.

The Basics: Construction started in August of 2010 and though the facility is budgeted at $56 million, Johnson said that, due to favorable labor and material costs owing to the ongoing recession, it will likely come in comfortably under budget. Right now the district expects the final cost to be $54.5 million. The building has a capacity of 1200 students, though right now the district expects somewhere between 850 and 900 students to enroll for the coming academic year. The building has three floors; the first is a common use space that holds the office, cafeteria, library, nurses’ suite, gym entrance, art and home economics classrooms, computer labs, and the auditorium. Sixth grade classrooms are located on the second floor while the third floor holds grades seven and eight. The building is set up for Wi-Fi, and has 60 such nodes. Though the facility will be ready for use when teachers arrive on August 20, all work will not be complete until December.

The cafeteria has a capacity of 450, but Johnson said only 300 will be served at a time. There is also a large, and handsome, outdoor patio space between cafeteria and the library, but it’s unclear how it will be used. It might be reserved for rewarding high-achieving students.

The library is located across from the main entrance. It has ample natural light—Johnson said studies indicate this is conducive to learning—and all its tables have electric outlets. Laptops will be available for students' use. The library also has some E-books (the district considered buying more, but it found E-books—despite the recommendation of its citizen advisory committee—are not yet cost-effective.) It’s also, like all the school’s classrooms, outfitted with a Smart Board.

The school’s enormous auditorium seats 900 naturally: 600 in a lower seating area and 300 in the balcony. (Bleachers on a platform above the balcony can fold down for an additional 300 seats; there’s also a retractable sound-proof wall that can separate the platform from the remainder of the auditorium. Johnson said this area will occasionally be used as a classroom.) It features ceiling “clouds” to reflect sound down, enhancing the room’s acoustics. The high school and middle school will put on performances there, as will community groups who are interested in using the facility. Johnson mentioned the Chester County Pops have demonstrated interest.

The science classrooms are similar in design to the high school’s science classrooms. Each room has a Smart Board at front, flanked by two dry-erase boards. There is student seating in the center, with work stations at the perimeter of the room.

The typical classroom is outfitted with small triangular desks. Their size allows students to move them around to accommodate different lessons. There are 67 classrooms. Each employs a motion detection lighting system: the lights will shut off in five minutes if there’s no one in the room. The school board decided not to go for LEED certification, deciding it wouldn’t be worth the time and paperwork, but Johnson said, as is, the facility would be very close to earning LEED certification. The heating system is a closed loop heat pump system. Each room has its own heat pump, which allows each teacher to control the temperature in their classroom. The auditorium and gymnasium have there own separate HVAC systems.

Lockers are on the second and third floors. There are 970 in all. Johnson said this should be enough for three or four years, at which point there are provisions to add lockers to the first floor. The hallways are wider than those of the old middle school.

The sports facilities also got a substantial upgrade. The space where the middle school used to be, once demolished, will be home to an all-purpose turf athletic field for field hockey, soccer, and lacrosse. “It will match pretty closely what is currently at Washington field,” Johnson said. The baseball field will be moved to this location as well, and what was Kennedy field will become two softball fields.

“We think we’ll have much better athletic facilities here than we ever had in the past,” Johnson added.

Parking will also be more abundant. When construction is complete, there will be 520 spaces on the campus, 70 more than the zoning ordinance required. High school student parking will be in front of old middle school; though for the first semester this year, while demolition is being finished on the middle school, there will be no student parking on campus. There will, eventually, be 120 student spots available. Johnson acknowledges that there will still be days when there isn’t enough parking, but said that, short of a parking garage, this is the best they could do.

The new gymnasium will seat 1200; more than twice the capacity of the current gym. Johnson said it can be used to host tournaments, which are often a moneymaker, and will hold games for boys and girls, high school and middle school, and JV and varsity. Private leagues will also use the facility.