EDGEWATER HIGH SCHOOL RECONSTUCTION UPDATE

EDGEWATER HIGH SCHOOL RECONSTRUCTION UPDATE

The Orange County Public Schools, OCPS, held an informational meeting on November 11th at Edgewater High School to give an update on the plans and progress of the planned reconstruction of the school.

This has been a long and sometime controversial process but the community has come to a strong consensus on the current plan. OCPS has purchased the three parcels immediately north of the existing campus, those being the existing shopping center, an undeveloped lot on its western border, and the “College Park Leisure Homes” on its northern border. That adds about twenty seven acres of land available for the school. On October 21st the City of Orlando’s Municipal Planning Board approved the rezoning of the land for public use and also vacated its right of way for what is now Preston Drive.

Those actions combined to provide enough room to build a comprehensive high school at the existing site, it will still be the smallest site for a comprehensive high school in Orange County.

C.T. HSU + ASSOCIATES, PA have been hired to design the school and presented their plans to the assembled crowd on Tuesday evening. The land that the current Administrative offices, music room, and Auditorium sit on will not be used for the new school, the land fronting Edgewater Drive south of Preston, effectively moving the school’s Edgewater Drive frontage north to Par Ave. There will be three vehicular entrances to the new school, the main entrance at Par, a second Edgewater drive entrance at a new driveway about were the current music building sits, and a third bus only entrance on Maury Road.

Site work on the former mobile home park may begin anytime, the shopping center will continue business through the end of the year and demolition is scheduled to begin in January. The actual construction is phased so as to minimally impact the operations of the school.

The “first phase” will be the bulk of the new school which will be built on the new land with an estimated construction time of eighteen months. During that time classes and school activities will continue in the existing facilities. At the beginning of the 2010 school year the new buildings will hopefully be ready for grades 10 thru 12 while 9th grade will continue in some of the designated existing buildings while the new 9th grade academy is completed on the south campus.

The College Park Neighborhood Association is working to get links to the plans up on their website as soon as they are available. So to take a look at the plans check in with their website at www.collegeparkorlando.org , they should be up soon.
I think it is was a strong consensus among those at the meeting, many of whom have been involved in these plans for many years, that the plans for the new school are realistic and that Edgewater High School can be proud of its new home once it is completed.