Lincoln High School plans for expansion
Ideas include move to new location
By Jennifer Anderson
The Portland Tribune, Jun 10, 2008
Courtesy of Group Mackenzie Architects
This rendering shows one of six proposals to rebuild Portland’s Lincoln High School.
Despite the Portland School Board’s decision to delay asking voters for a multi-million-dollar bond sale to upgrade and rebuild its facilities this fall, Lincoln High School is taking its future into its own hands.
A committee charged with studying the school’s long-term redevelopment options issued a report on Monday that presents six options for modernization and expansion.
The report comes after nearly two years of study; now it’s headed to the Portland School Board sometime after a public meeting set for 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., Thursday, at the Lincoln High School cafeteria, 1600 S.W. Salmon St.
Located in the midst of prime real estate in Southwest Portland’s Goose Hollow neighborhood, the affluent and high-achieving school has been so overcrowded over the past decade that storage and cafeteria spaces have been converted into windowless classrooms and enrollment last year was limited to neighborhood students.
Next fall, due to a large graduating class, Lincoln will open 50 slots for transfer students. The 1952 building was originally designed to hold 1,200 students; this year there were 1,400 enrolled. Last year Lincoln was rated the district’s most dense school building, in terms of overcrowding.
Lincoln debate team coach Alison Brody, a 1991 alumnus and one of of two primary authors of the report, said that in her time, about a third of the school’s population was made up of transfer students.
“I see what it’s like, now versus then,” she said. “There’s a real richness missing, a diversity of all kinds. It was more of a Portland high school as opposed to being a West Hills high school.”
The report presents five options for redevelopment at the current school site:
• Modernizing or rebuilding the school.
• Remodeling it with development on its adjacent sites,
• Building a campus of four buildings around a central courtyard.
• Rebuilding the school on the west side of the site, with a new field and underground parking below as well as two blocks of partner development on the east side of the space.
A sixth option is to sell the current site and relocate elsewhere.
There’s been some talk by developers of relocating the school to the 11-acre undeveloped site owned by Con-way Inc. between Northwest 23rd and 19th avenues, north of Northrup Street. The report says that is not the only possible new location, however, although it does not name any other specific sites, noting that more research is needed.
All of the options would house about 1,800 students in 300,000 square feet of space, about a third larger than the school is currently.
The committee feels this expansion is ideal “so LHS can maintain its International Baccalaureate, International Studies Center and Spanish Immersion programs, participate in 6A athletics and sustain a full band and choir,” the report states.
The committee also said it wants to enroll more transfer students, expand program offerings and boost overall enrollment in the district.
“However,” the report cautions, “expanding LHS and increasing transfer opportunities could impact other schools in the district. This issue needs to be carefully considered through the district’s upcoming High School planning effort.”
District leaders are currently engaged in a separate process to reform and realign its high schools, since many, like Lincoln, are bursting, while others are hurting for students due to program cuts and past low achievement.
Brody said the committee is consulting with district leaders as well as other school communities – Jefferson High, Benson High and Hollyrood/Fernwood School – looking at ways to address their facility problems.
Money an issue
As far as funding strategies, the Lincoln committee hopes to use bond money from a potential PPS facilities levy in 2010. But it has also identified other sources that could supplement those funds.
The report estimates that a new Lincoln High School of the desired size would cost $90 million to $125 million in 2010 dollars. The report uses $110 million as a base number, and presents three scenarios that would use a combination of Portland Development Commission’s urban renewal funds and real estate development strategies.
Currently, the school doesn’t sit in any urban renewal area so it doesn’t qualify for those tax increment revenues. But the committee is hoping that if the PDC creates a new urban renewal area or expands the successful River District urban renewal area to include the Lincoln property in the next few years, some of those funds could be used to improve the school.
According to the report, real estate options include:
• Selling the land (to net $10 million).
• Leasing it to a private developer for about $1 million in revenue each year.
• Utilizing new market tax credits (a federal program to finance community development projects).
• Selling excess floor-area-ratio (essentially the air space above a building) to developers.
Brody said an optimistic goal is to have a new school open in eight to 10 years.
In the meantime, students and teachers will have to bear with the existing conditions – not only overcrowding, but an outdated facility that includes active mold spores in the classrooms, drinking water that’s unsafe to drink and regular overflows from bathrooms and sinks.
As is the case at many schools in the district, the list of problems goes on: the heating and cooling systems are faulty, the bleachers are condemned, and there’s no working cafeteria space due to the conversion to classrooms.
“The facility is rundown,” Brody said. “A lot of kids complain about the (poor ventilation in the) science lab. There’s tremendous stress on the athletes, who have to work out at 6:30 in the morning or 9 at night. It forces a number of unreasonable situations on the students and their families.”
To view the report, go to:
http://lincoln.pps.k12.or.us/ltdc.
jenniferanderson@portlandtribune.com