ThisWeek Community Newspapers

The Ohio Schools Facilities Commission is moving toward finalizing plans for the new Ohio State School for the Blind and Ohio School for the Deaf, but more work is needed and public input is still welcome.

"We still have a lot of unanswered questions, and we're still open for suggestions," said OSFC executive director Mike Shoemaker. "It's still in pencil."

The OSFC hosted an open house at the School for the Deaf last week to reveal its current plans for the project, which depict each school with new buildings on its existing site.

On the School for the Blind campus, main buildings are focused on a central area. Visitors would be greeted by the new core and academic buildings, with the students' dormitories farther down the main road around a quad.

The plans for the School for the Deaf place most buildings in a straight line, with the core and academic buildings again being the focus from the schools' main entrance. Dorms are placed farthest to the north, closest to the Bill Moose Ravine.

The School for the Deaf also features a performing arts and outreach building on the southeast side of the campus.

Both schools would be linked by a bridge through the ravine to allow buses, students and staff to pass easily between the two campuses.

Shoemaker said the plans reflect the needs of the two schools, with the School for the Blind being more compact to allow students to get around more easily, while the School for the Deaf focuses on visibility around the campus.

John Dickinson, a consultant for the project from Winter & Co. in Colorado, said the layout of the buildings will help students get from place to place more easily and more quickly, allowing more time for instruction.

"The students need to save their educational time," he said. "Right now, the school is like a maze."

For safety's sake, Dickinson said the buildings are arranged to allow a clear line of sight through the campus and to keep residential buildings farther away from traffic to the schools' main buildings.

Dickinson said the buildings also were planned to take into account the community's concerns, expressed at an open house and in public meetings last year. The design includes ample green space and plans to protect the site from commercial development.

"We've been working tirelessly with the community," Dickinson said. "We have the conservation area. We're not doing anything with that."

Shoemaker said as the construction date draws closer, the plans may change slightly, and the public input following last week's open house will be taken into consideration.

"Everything is still evolving as we work on it," he said. "We know pretty much what we want to build, but we want to move it around a little."

Shoemaker said the OSFC still has work to do with the Franklin County Soil and Water Conservation District to discuss the feasibility of building the bridge to connect the campus across the ravine.

"That's kind of a big one because that's key to the design," he said.

As far as the site plans go, Shoemaker said the next step will be for architects to start to design buildings and create drawings of what the buildings will look like.

Site preparation is scheduled to start in the fall, with construction beginning in spring 2009. Shoemaker said if all goes according to plans, Phase I of the project, which involves the residential, academic and core buildings, would be ready by fall 2010.

He said Phase I will use the more than $40-million allocated for the project and Phase II, comprising a performing arts center and natatorium at the School for the Blind, plus an additional building and athletic fields at the School for the Deaf, will rely on fundraising efforts.

"The Phase II build-out depends a lot on that," Shoemaker said.

<center>jnesbitt@thisweeknews.com