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The proposed site plan concept for the new Celina High School.
CELINA - Celina schools officials are seeking the community's input on crucial decisions that must be made this spring regarding certain district athletic facilities, including the historic Fieldhouse, which has been the subject of fierce debate.
An online survey is now live at surveymonkey.com/r/CelinaSchools and will remain open until Feb. 21. All responses to the set of 10 questions are anonymous and go directly to the Ohio School Boards Association, which is assisting school board members and administrators with facilitation of the survey, according to superintendent Brooke Gessler.
Individuals lacking computer access or experiencing difficulty with the link can take the survey on public access computers at Mercer County District Library during regular business hours, according to a school news release.
Gessler last month said survey analysis will take place later in February, followed by a presentation to the school board and community at a work session scheduled for 6 p.m. March 10 in the high school lecture hall.
Though tremendous progress is being made on the new grades 7-12 school building going up on East Wayne Street, questions remain about the future of long-standing district athletic facilities.
School board members last month were presented with updated estimates from building project architect Garmann Miller showing that it will cost $1.3 million to $1.7 million just to update the Fieldhouse and bring it up to code.
This would involve making utility-based infrastructure improvements, converting a coaches office into an ADA-compliant restroom and buttoning-up the Fieldhouse.
"That has nothing to do with locker rooms … or outside of the one ADA-compliant restroom, that doesn't change anything else," board member Adam Schleucher had said.
The building project, which also involved a new 115,000-square-foot addition for students grades pre-K through 3 and the revamping of the Celina Intermediate School for grades 4-6, is a partnership between the school district and the Ohio Facilities Construction Commission. Originally budgeted at $106.6 million, the project ballooned to $121.7 million due to a host of factors, according to board member Mark Huelsman.
Board members have set in stone a number of master plan items, but others are still up in the air and will be decided with help from the community via the survey.
Built in 1939, the Fieldhouse holds rich nostalgic value and is highly regarded by some, while other community members believe it has served its purpose and should be laid to rest.
OFCC will co-fund the abatement and demolition of the Fieldhouse and education complex building. The state recommends abatement and demolition due to the building's condition, but it's ultimately up to the district.
"While the current building project is underway through 2027, the Field House will remain as a needed component of the district's facilities," the school's news release states. "The intent of this survey is for Celina's community to inform important and hard decisions the Board and Administration need to make regarding not only maintaining the Field House, but also renovations beyond the next few years, including whether efforts should begin now to secure funding for a new athletic complex to serve our athletic teams for this generation and future generations of Celina Bulldogs."
For example, Garmann Miller initially estimated it would cost $3.5 million to build a new track with 500 seats and another $2.5 million to put a football field inside it with an additional 4,500 seats.
The initial estimate to "button up" the Tri-Star addition was $473,000, plus an additional $1.9 million to repurpose it for guest locker rooms, restrooms, a concession area, ticket booth, wrestling space and storage.
