By ERIC STEVICK
Herald Writer
LYNNWOOD — The Edmonds School District is moving closer to defining the future of Lynnwood High School but several key decisions still must be made.
This is where the public comes in.
The district will share with parents and the community Monday the findings of a preliminary report that reviews several building options for Lynnwood High. The meeting begins at 7 p.m. at the school, 3001 184th St. SW.
Among other things, the $200,000 study concludes that the district can rebuild or build anew on the existing campus, despite challenging ground water issues that have led to flooding in the main school building in the past.
"There is no reason we would have to move off the site," said Cheri Hendricks, design and construction manager for the district.
What the report doesn’t provide is a specific recommendation about whether existing buildings should be rebuilt or if a new campus should be erected. Nor does it set in stone an enrollment capacity.
"It truly is, What does the community want us to do here?" Hendricks said.
The future of Lynnwood High School, which is nearly 30 years old, could be part of a large-scale bond measure that would appear before voters in 2002. The district is also studying the needs of other schools, such as Scriber Lake High, an alternative school, which would figure into the total amount of the bond proposal.
Possibilities for Lynnwood High School range from a $30 million construction project that would merely bring the school up to building codes to a $56 million project that would build a new campus to serve 1,600 students and maintain several district-wide programs, such as carpentry, computer repair and horticulture.
Construction estimates don’t take into consideration other costs, such as planning, land use permits and sales tax.
There are building options in between to either rebuild the existing school or build a new school on the same site for 1,200 students.
"We have looked at the existing building and come up with a couple of ways to make it comparable to Edmonds Woodway or Meadowdale (high schools)," Hendricks said, referring to two of the district’s new high school campuses.
As part of its study, the district also will also look at building the school on undeveloped land it owns about a half mile north of the Floral Hill Cemetery.
Cost would be the biggest obstacle with that option, known as the North Road site. Infrastructure improvements, such as roads and sewer service, would make it "significantly higher" than building on the existing campus, Hendricks said.
Other potential issues deal with the aesthetics of cutting down the forested land and that the high school would be outside Lynnwood’s city limits.
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