Schools

Clearing for Westlake High School Construction to Begin Soon

Neighbors met on Tuesday to discuss concerns and see updated plans.

The Westlake City School district presented updated plans for the high school to neighboring residents Tuesday, showing two possible designs. Attendees asked questions about construction, traffic flow and more, and had a chance to see both possible architectural layouts.

said school board members are leaning toward the new version of plans for the high school, which have been updated since December. The new plan includes a new road on the high school’s west side and a traffic light to control cars leaving the high school onto Hilliard Boulevard. Keenan said the light will cost about $200,000.

“People were concerned about the traffic on Hilliard,” he said. “We want to see if we can offset the cost without any educational effects.”

Find out what's happening in Westlakewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The plan also calls for about 40 fewer spaces in the parking lot. In order to shield the lot from the view of surrounding residents, landscape architects are planning to create mounds of green space in front of the school and retain the larger trees.

“We want to be able to screen the cars as much as possible,” said Jeremy Hinte with landscape architects Behnke Associates, Inc.

Find out what's happening in Westlakewith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Several residents expressed concern regarding the size of the buffer of forest between the school and their homes with the addition of an access road on the west side of the property. Hinte said the plan is to keep the existing woods to the extent possible and perhaps add evergreen trees to help.

“We feel that we’re in a spot where we’ve tried the best we can to maintain the buffer,” Keenan said. “Please know we’re balancing the vehicles, trying to make sure we have safety routes for the kids and making sure there’s enough parking and we’ve been trying to take your input and it has been tough. But we think there’s a pretty good buffer there. . . We tried to make that road as thin as possible. We’ll make it as close as we’re allowed to and as thin as we’re allowed to.”

Construction vehicles will use the bus entrance as the main construction entrance, said Robert Teitenberg, K-12 manager for Turner Construction Co., adding that crews will start clearing trees for the construction entrance in a few weeks.

When asked about safety precautions for students during building, Teitenberg said the company will construct a 6-foot-tall chain link fence all around the construction zone.

“We don’t want kids going through the construction area at all,” Keenan said. “It’s just not safe.”

Teitenberg added that construction crews will be working with the Westlake Poilce Department to keep the area secure. He also said that crews will be visiting neighboring homes to introduce themselves and give out contact information so that if residents see anything suspicious, they can report it.

“We’re going to try to minimize our impact on you as much as possible,” Teitenberg said.

While work is going on, the baseball field will be turned into a parking lot and students and staff will enter the school on its eastern side.

The project is scheduled for completion in time for the 2013-2014 school year.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

More from Westlake