Page 32 - ARUBA TODAY

A32 FEATURE
Wednesday 31 July 2019
Vacant office parks find new life as schools, colleges

By MICHAEL MELIA and the retrofit took much
Associated Press less time than it would have
FAIRFIELD, Conn. (AP) — On to build a new school.
the new satellite campus of "We went to the planning
Sacred Heart University, the council in September, and
helicopter landing pad re- 11 months later the building
mains as one of the few re- opened, all glossy and gor-
minders that the wooded, geous," she said.
69-acre property served HOUSTON
until recently as the global As the Awty International
headquarters for General School was looking for room
Electric. to expand its early learn-
Where Jack Welch sat at ing center, the Houston
the pinnacle of corpo- neighborhood was seeing
rate America, professors business parks give way to
now lead classes inside more condos, apartments
the sleek, 1970s buildings and retail development.
on the campus purchased When an office park across
by the university following the street became avail-
GE's departure for Boston in able for sale, the private
2016. school in the city center
Across the country, of- This undated photo made available by Josh Meister shows the North Atlanta High School in At- bought the five-acre prop-
fice parks that have lost lanta. erty. It opened in Septem-
their luster with employers Associated Press ber 2017 as a campus
are being repurposed as for preschool through first
school buildings. Colleges main buildings, but the uni- a high school inside a tion headquarters. grade students. A play-
and school districts willing versity already has moved 11-story office tower that In September, the building ground replaced a parking
to think beyond traditional the education, computer once housed IBM, design- reopened as the Ferdinand lot in an interior courtyard,
school settings are retrofit- science and engineering ers found classrooms fit well T. Day Elementary School, and the ceiling was raised
ting office space to help departments to what it is within the column structure. named for a civil rights ad- in one building to accom-
them deal with growing calling its West Campus, a But there was plenty that vocate who worked for de- modate a gym.
enrollments and a scarcity short shuttle ride from the needed changing. segregation in Alexandria. The 30-year-old develop-
of land in urban and subur- main campus. A nine-story building on the The school district bought a ment had been home to
ban areas. Michael Kinney, a university 56-acre property was torn parking garage adjacent businesses including a bi-
Sacred Heart computer administrator, said the $31.5 down to make room for a to the building for play- cycle maker and a tax of-
science professor Bob Mc- million paid for the property gymnasium and audito- ground space, including fice before being sold. The
Cloud said he likes the was a bargain when com- rium. Stairs were installed to a basketball court on the school renovated the entire
natural light the floor-to- pared with the cost of new create double-level com- roof. A footbridge was built property, adding color to
ceiling windows bring into construction. mon areas for each grade to allow children to walk the brick facade with new
the classrooms. And the A similar idea has been level and reduce logjams from the third floor of the resin panels, and they were
leftover cubicles outside his under consideration a few on the elevators. And lami- school to the building with on track for significant sav-
office leave plenty of room miles down the Connecti- nated glass was installed in play areas. ings compared to the costs
for his graduate students. cut shoreline in Stamford, all the floor-to-ceiling win- The bottom four floors make of new construction before
But he is still adjusting to the where the school district dows to keep students from up the school, with the top running into challenges
former GE site. was looking at an unoc- falling through if any were two reserved for school of- with the remodeling.
"It's a little corporate," he cupied building that once to crash into them while fice space. With large win- "I'm not sure in the end we
said. housed Xerox as the poten- roughhousing. dows that let in abundant really realized those sav-
A 28-bedroom guesthouse tial site of an elementary IBM's kitchen and cafeteria natural light, school district ings," said Don Davis, the
with a ballroom has been school. were kept in place — with spokeswoman Helen Lloyd school's director of facili-
kept by the university to Some other examples: some modifications. said the building lent itself ties, "but it turned out to be
support a new hospitality ATLANTA "You can't have chande- well to a school setting, a very nice project."q
program. Renovations are When Atlanta Public liers in a kids' cafeteria,"
still underway at the two Schools decided to build said Bob Just, an architect
with the firm Cooper Carry
in Atlanta.
North Atlanta High School
opened in the new space in
2013. IBM once employed
over 5,000 people at the
site but that had number
had dwindled to less than
a thousand as more were
working at home or cus-
tomer sites.
ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA
With a fast-growing student
population, and little avail-
able land, the city of Alex-
This August 2018 photo provided by The Awty International andria saw opportunity in a This Oct. 2, 2018, photo shows the former General Electric head-
School shows a playground at The Early Learning campus at The cheap, vacant office tower quarters in Fairfield, Conn., that was purchased by Sacred Heart
Awty International School in Houston. that had once housed the University in 2016.
Associated Press National Diabetes Associa- Associated Press