Urbana school board narrows options for early childhood building
URBANA — The Urbana school board has narrowed the options for a site for a new early childhood building.
Board members favor either building a new facility on land the district owns around Prairie Elementary School, 2101 E. Washington St., or on the same site as the current Washington Early Childhood School at 1002 N. Broadway Ave.
Urbana architect Riley Glerum and Washington Principal Crystal Vowels talked with the board Tuesday night about the advantages and disadvantages of building either on the current site or on land at Prairie, Thomas Paine or Yankee Ridge elementary schools.
Glerum said Prairie was the best site in terms of the amount of buildable land and frontage along a street.
The board agreed it would no longer consider building on land at either Thomas Paine or Yankee Ridge schools. Members will talk again about a site for early childhood at a business meeting on Sept. 21.
Glerum and Vowels have been talking with the early childhood staff about space needs for the programs at the early childhood center, and they plan to present that information to the board in October.
The school board meeting ended at 11:45 p.m. Tuesday.
The area around Washington School on Broadway does not have many young families that can walk easily to it, far from it nor is the area set to grow toward that as the area around Prairie School is. The Washington School will cost more to maintain an upgrade over time than building a new, for a school district code. It would be better off sold to a developer who could preserve and transform it into a bed and breakfast adjecent to the park or apartments.
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