The former Rosslyn Heights Elementary site will become a place where Highland High School students can practice and compete in sports including tennis, soccer and lacrosse, Salt Lake City school board members unanimously decided late Tuesday.
The plan calls for six tennis courts and one combined, artificial field for both soccer and lacrosse, as well as a sports field building on the site that once housed the former public arts charter Salt Lake School for the Performing Arts (SPA).
“To have that property be something that Highland High can utilize, and that they need desperately, is such a win-win for our district,” said board member Kristi Swett.
SPA had been housed in the old Rosslyn Heights building since 2006, but moved downtown after the district let the school’s building lease expire in June due to the extensive repairs and maintenance required to keep it running.
If the district were to go to bond and get the funds to rebuild West and Highland high schools, many of the current athletic spaces at Highland would be removed during construction. The estimated costs of the new athletics space sits at around $6.4 million, according to the Salt Lake City School District’s business administrator, Alan Kearsley.
The district first plans to demolish the shuttered school building in December. Construction on the athletics space is expected to begin sometime before July, with the district aiming to complete it during the 2024-2025 fiscal year. The money will come out of the district’s Capital Projects Fund for the 2023-2024 and 2024-2025 fiscal years.
No room for pickleball?
After the plan was presented to board members in September, the district surveyed community members on the proposed athletics space.
Many asked for community pickleball courts, either to replace or to be used in conjunction with the planned tennis courts, Kearsley said. Board members including Mohamed Baayd echoed that desire.
But because there is “no such thing as a high school pickleball team,” Kearsley said, that won’t be happening.
“[The space] really serves the district needs,” he said. “We do have tennis teams, and for competition tennis, you can’t re-stripe them both.”
Board member Ashley Anderson wanted to clarify whether the district could have instead sold the property to potentially prevent some proposed school closures, citing concerns from her constituents.
Kearsley responded that the school closure study is about “what’s best for students,” not just a cost-saving measure, and said if the district were to sell the property, it would mark a “one-time” cash infusion, but “once you use that cash, it’s gone.”
“You lose all the flexibility you may need for the site that’s in question,” he continued.
Security questions, following summer break-ins
Another question explored late Tuesday was that of a security plan for the space, which will be independent of other district buildings and sits in the middle of a neighborhood.
Board member Bryan Jensen noted security had not been budgeted into estimated costs. There were two break-ins at the Rosslyn Heights building over the summer, after SPA moved out, district executive director of Auxiliary Services Isaac Astill said in September.
“It seems to me like there is going to need to be something budgeted for that, with all of those facilities,” Jensen said.
Kearsley responded that many of the district’s open, public spaces deal with security issues, and said that as officials continue to design the new space, they will take security into consideration. He noted there is a districtwide vandalism budget.
“So it’ll be a district commitment to keep it a safe environment and not let it run down, because clearly we want our properties to be top-notch, especially for student use,” Kearsley said. “We’ll continue to flesh out the security needs of the site as we move forward.”
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