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Alvin ISD plans for growth
Published June 14, 2003
Alvin ISD officials unveiled a preliminary design Thursday for a high school being planned to meet future growth along the Highway 288 corridor.
Superintendent Greg Smith said the high school is “the driving force” behind a $97.2 million bond election, which will be Sept. 20.
“This is serious business,” Smith said. “This is our future. Apathy cannot be exercised. There is no back up plan.”
The school, which will be in Manvel at Highway 6 and McCoy Road, is being built to meet projected growth in the district’s west end, which includes Manvel and parts of Pearland. Originally a district committee identified $129 million in facility needs, but trustees approved a pared version of the recommendation in an effort to keep taxes down.
School district officials are projecting that Alvin ISD’s current student population of 11,600 will grow to 14,000 in the next four years.
The district’s west end is seeing a lot of residential development. Alvin ISD is trying to prepare for the growth from new subdivisions such as Shadow Creek Ranch, which will have 12,000 homes, and Rodeo Palms, which will have 2,000 homes. Pearland officials predict Shadow Creek Ranch will have about 35,000 residents by the year 2017.
“There needs to be a high school in Manvel,” Alvin ISD Superintendent Greg Smith told residents Thursday. “With the emergence of the western part of our school district, you are overdue.”
If voters approve the bond, construction on the school will begin next year with its opening planned for 2006. It would be Alvin ISD’s second high school
The bond election would pay for phase one of the high school, which will accommodate 1,500 students. Phase two will accommodate 2,500 students.
Another bond election would be necessary to fund phase two, but district officials don’t know when that will happen. The second phase will be built when growth demands it.
Mark Lam of SHW Group Inc., the architectural company designing the school, said the school is being built to meet future growth, but not all of that growth has happened at this time.
“You can’t afford to build it now and have a lot of empty classrooms,” Lam said. “It depends on the growth.”
Tom Amundsen, a Manvel resident, said he liked that the district would build the school in phases.
“It’s prudent,” Amundsen said. “I think it’s wise to grow into the high school.”
The high school will have a colonial architectural style, but will be built for modern uses, Lam said.
“One of the board members said they wanted a Monticello style,” Lam said. “We used that as a guide.”
The focal point of the campus will be a tower, and some of buildings will have glass walls. Preliminary plans call for the building to have either red or orange brick, Lam said.
Alton Rogers, a Manvel resident since 1961, said he was impressed with the design of the school.
“The school looks so nice I wish I was going back to it,” Rogers said. “I think it’s real nice.”
Carlos Armintor covers Alvin ISD for The Facts. Contact him at (979) 265-7411, Ext. 246.
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