Central Valley School District unveils latest high school plans
The community got a second look at plans for a new Central Valley School District comprehensive high school in Liberty Lake during an open house last week.
The district bought 99 acres from the Spokane Gun Club at 19615 E. Sprague Ave. earlier this year, though the entrance to the high school is planned for Country Vista Drive. The gun club will continue to use a portion of the site through July 2021.
It’s not unusual for the district to seek public input on the construction of new schools, but it is unusual to do this much, said district spokeswoman Marla Nunberg. “This is probably more extensive than we’ve done,” she said. “This is very important to the community.”
Several open houses have been held to get community input. The district has also asked the community for name suggestions, which will be evaluated by a committee.
“We had quite a few suggestions, a lot of them geographically based,” she said.
The new school will be paid for by a construction bond approved by the voters earlier this year. Groundbreaking is set for July and the school is expected to be open in the fall of 2021.
The district has two existing comprehensive high schools, Central Valley High School and University High School. Each was designed for 1,600 students, but projected enrollment for the two schools in 2021 is 4,492. The new high school will also accommodate 1,600 students.
The new school was originally planned for a site the district purchased near 16th Avenue and Henry Road decades ago, but the site needed road, sewer and water improvements. The school board voted earlier this year to buy land from the gun club to speed up construction and reduce infrastructure costs.
The plans presented during last week’s open house had some significant changes from the earlier version. The changes are in part because the school district swapped some property with Centennial Properties, Nunberg said. Centennial Properties is owned by Cowles Co., which also owns The Spokesman-Review.
“It was just a tiny portion on the north side,” Nunberg said. “It wasn’t a very large piece.”
The property swap means the sports fields are no longer clustered immediately to the south of the high school. The four baseball and softball fields are now up in the northwest corner of the site along Appleway Avenue while the football and soccer fields and tennis courts are to the south of the school.
“We did change things around with the playfields,” Nunberg said. “We moved them and opened up the parking lot.”
The parking lot and high school complex have swapped places on the site, with the high school now on the eastern portion of the property. The parking lot includes areas for staff and students as well as a bus drop off area.
The site plan calls for two entrances on Country Vista Drive and a traffic light is proposed for the one opposite the freeway on and off ramps.
The district also presented the first rendering of what the outside of the school will look like at last week’s open house. The people who attended seemed excited about the new school and liked the renderings, Nunberg said.