An architectural firm known for its school construction across the U.S. and around the world has been tentatively tapped to design The Renaissance Academy – the working name for a standalone institution geared to science, technology, engineering and math pursuits for Monongalia County students.
The DLR Group, which in recent years put up a similar school in Colorado, rose to the top of the pack after its pitch to the Board of Education last month.
Meeting Tuesday in regular session, the board voted unanimously, after the recommendation of Superintendent Eddie Campbell Jr.
Three other firms were also vying for the $72 million project.
The district will now enter into contract negotiations with the firm, Campbell said, for what he hopes will be the ultimate awarding of the project.
Meanwhile, The Renaissance Academy will occupy a 150-acre expanse of land in the Cassville area, which would be in full view from nearby Interstate 79.
The district purchased the land for $1.5 million three years ago, the superintendent said.
Situated along W.Va. 7, it was chosen because of its equal proximity technically, to Morgantown High School, University High and Clay-Battelle.
Call that trio the existing feeder schools for a new, specialized school geared to STEM and STEM only, Campbell said.
It’s about land, and changing landscapes, in the efforts of the Mountain State and its public-school districts that are tasked with getting young people ready for the careers of the 21st century, the superintendent added.
“We’re excited to be getting to this point,” Campbell said previously.
He spearheaded the proposal and project and first started talking about it before the pandemic in 2020.
“In terms of brick-and-mortar construction, this will be nothing like our school district has ever seen,” he said.
What Campbell does see are images of students from the three high schools rotating in and out of the academy for specialized technical learning, without sacrificing the liberal arts offerings in their main buildings.
That means no crowding of the all-important core classes, he said.
The coming of the new STEM school will also herald the retrofitting of the current Monongalia County Technical Education Center on Mississippi Street.
MTEC, in turn, will offer age-appropriate tech instruction to Mon’s middle-schoolers, casting the career-technical education net even wider.
For now, the Renaissance Academy is the centerpiece of the district’s 2020-30 Comprehensive Education Facilities Plan, or CEFP, as it is known in the central office.
The CEFP is a paradigm-shifting dice roll updated every 10 years.
Marquee projects rule in the document, which is a kind of visionary operator’s manual.
The construction of Eastwood Elementary, the county’s first official environmentally friendly green building on the Mileground, came in under the 2010-20 document.
A new University High on Bakers Ridge was the unifying project in the document before that.
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