York playground equipment to move to BES

Prop­erty

may be sold

By SALLY BOYD

Gazette Neigh­bors Editor

BVUlifestyle@civitasmedia.com

Now that the for­mer York Ele­men­tary School build­ings have been torn down, passers-by have been curi­ous about what is going to hap­pen to the prop­erty and to the rel­a­tively new play­ground equip­ment which remains.

Belle­vue School Dis­trict Super­in­ten­dent Kim Schu­bert, answered sev­eral “what now?” questions.

She said that pend­ing the arrival of warmer weather, the play­ground equip­ment, pur­chased a few short years ago by the for­mer York PTO with funds raised for that pur­pose, will be moved to the new Belle­vue Ele­men­tary School.

It will be added to the new play­ground items already in place and in heavy use.

“It will be moved in the spring or sum­mer of this year,” Schu­bert said.

As for the prop­erty on which the for­mer school build­ings sat, Schu­bert antic­i­pates it will be sold.

“The board hasn’t made a final deci­sion regard­ing the land yet, but I would say there is a high prob­a­bil­ity that it will be sold at auc­tion,” said Schubert.

“I don’t know the time­line for that yet.”

Park­ing spots

maxed out at

new build­ings

The super­in­ten­dent also addressed ques­tions about park­ing at both the new ele­men­tary and mid­dle schools, the lat­ter often con­gested when there is an after-school or week­end event being held.

“We put in the max­i­mum num­ber of park­ing spaces (at both schools) that were allowed by the Ohio School Facil­i­ties Com­mis­sion (OSFC) build­ing man­ual and code,” she said.

“We have to have green space avail­able on the prop­erty in order for water to prop­erly drain.

“The rea­son the OSFC does not allow more park­ing spaces is strictly because of drainage pur­poses,” Schu­bert added.

“There is a well thought out, com­plex for­mula that the engi­neers of the project used to deter­mine how much black­top we could have on the prop­erty, in addi­tion to the build­ing, and still have proper drainage on the site.

“We had to make sure that 100 per­cent of all storm water is retained on our prop­erty to avoid flood­ing into the neigh­bors yards.

“The only park­ing issue I am aware of is at the mid­dle school dur­ing band/choir events,” she noted.

“The ele­men­tary school has split their music pro­grams, and there hasn’t been an issue with seat­ing or park­ing. Peo­ple have to remem­ber that they can park in the back of the ele­men­tary school for spe­cial events.

“The last pro­duc­tion I attended (at the ele­men­tary) there were ample park­ing spaces avail­able in the back,” she also pointed out.

Schu­bert added there are other park­ing options for BMS.

“The First United Methodist Church (on North­west Street) has agreed to allow over­flow park­ing at the church for events at the mid­dle school.

“The mid­dle school is also look­ing at dif­fer­ent options such as split­ting their band/choir con­certs by grade level to help with parking.

Another option is to park at Pamida (on Castalia Street) and walk to the mid­dle school,” she con­cluded, adding that doors on both sides of both build­ings are open for after-hours’ school events.

Posted by Becky Brooks on Feb 16 2013. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.