Brunswick City Schools presents initial site plans for new high school to the city

BRUNSWICK — Brunswick City Schools is one step closer to building a new Brunswick High School. The district showed initial site plans during Brunswick Planning Commission's meeting on Thursday. The proposed high school is anticipated to be approximately 302,000 square feet and will be located on the site of the former Towslee Elementary School. Scott Alleman from ThenDesign Architecture said the school has a student capacity of 1,785, which just accounts for students in the classrooms rather than other spaces like the gymnasiums. "We feel like we're in a good spot in moving forward," Brunswick City Schools Superintendent Jason Niedermeyer said. "We're building a building that's the right size for the future of the school district." The academic portion of the building will be two stories tall and face Center Road, Alleman said. Grades 9 and 10 will be in the southeast part of the school while grades 11 and 12 will be in the southwest, and each grade will have its own wing. Then, the building's center will feature shared spaces like gymnasiums, art rooms and cafeteria spaces, he said. The main gym will be able to fit 2,000 spectators. "Fire code would tell you that we could fit 850 spectators in our existing gym," Niedermeyer said. "It was really important to our planning team. We wanted to have a space that we could put every single student that attends Brunswick High School and every single staff member in one space." A performing arts center will be housed in the north side of the building, and it will be able to seat 1,000 people, Alleman said. The building height of the stage area is planned for 50 feet, which is greater than the maximum height permitted by the city. As a result, the school district would need a variance from the Brunswick Board of Zoning Appeals to proceed. "(It's) to get the height requirements for the acoustics and everything we need in that space that has to be set a little higher than the rest," he said. There will be 659 new parking spaces on site, and the district already has 148 spaces by the Brunswick Recreation Center and 592 spaces by the football stadium. Alleman said car and bus traffic will occur in separate areas. A variety of new fields will also be put in behind the new school such as a baseball field with a band practice field overlay, a softball field and six tennis courts with a pickleball court overlay. Walkability was also discussed at the meeting. Brunswick City Engineer Matt Jones said the city is working on extending the Plum Creek Greenway Trail toward North Park. The city does not currently know where it will extend the trail next but is asking the school district to preserve the opportunity for the trail to be put next to the new high school. "If you come to me and say, 'here's what we're thinking,' and it's safe for our kids and it meets both parties' needs, we would obviously be a willing partner in that," Niedermeyer said. The Planning Commission passed a motion for the project to move on to a detailed site plan and public hearing at a later date. Vice Chairman Bradley Saeger asked the developer to create a drawing that would show the community the general volume and shape of the building. "This is going to be a proud building sitting on a hill as we come into the city of Brunswick," Brunswick Economic Development Director Grant Aungst said. "It's in the center, and when you look at that, that's incredibly important not just to the school but to the entire community. I think this is going to be quite a masterpiece, quite frankly, with what they've been planning." Contact reporter Madisyn Woodring at (330) 721-4049 or mwoodring@medina-gazette.com.