New Fort Mill middle school to rise 3 stories

Fort Mill’s newest middle school will go up soon.

Three stories up.

The town board of zoning appeals recently granted two variances for the Fort Mill School District’s fifth middle school to be built at Pleasant and Vista roads. The school will open for the 2017-18 school year.

The almost 38-acre site has a stream running through its center. To fit a school for 1,000 students along with athletic fields, architects had to get creative.

“What we’ve got is a very restrictive site,” said Jon Hathaway with project manager Cumming Corp.

Roger Attanasio with designer LS3P said a multi-story school on one side of the stream and ballfields on the other fits the site, which is heavily sloped and will require dirt to be taken out or filled in almost along the entire property.

“It divides the site into basically two areas to build upon,” he said. “We want to stay away from that stream.”

The school will have three wings, at three stories. Bus parking will be just south on Pleasant, tying into the entrance to Pleasant Knoll Elementary School, with car parking just north of the new middle school. On the opposite side of the stream will be an athletic field with an eight-lane track, a field house, bleachers, a press box, two more multipurpose fields and a baseball field and more parking.

Zoning allows for a building height of 35 feet on the property, with lighting no higher than 16 feet. The variance requests asked for a 52-foot building maximum heights and 81 feet for lighting poles. Lights in parking areas would remain at 16 feet, but eight taller poles would light fields for practice and competitions.

Zoning Board Chairman Jim Thomas said he went to a middle and high school on multiple stories, and had no issue approving the variance. Board member Jody Stegall said he’s long advocated multi-story schools as land becomes scarcer and students more plentiful in Fort Mill.

“I think it’s great that we’re finally putting students above ground level,” he said.

A bridge will connect the school and fields. The site will have a 50-foot buffer along Pleasant Road, and builders will add about 200 trees. Planners said the taller athletic field lighting will help reduce glare to nearby properties by better aiming the lights on the fields.

“The higher the poles are,” Hathaway said, “the less (light) pollution you have.”

Drawings for the school show eighth-graders on the third floor, seventh grade on second floor and sixth grade at ground level. A gymnasium will be about the same height, but starting at a lower elevation. Hathaway said the three-story plan is a product of space and topography, rather than a model the district would necessarily replicate at future middle schools.

In past construction cycles, particularly with elementary schools, the district used one basic design for multiple new schools. That pattern may not be the case moving forward as the district looks to make the most of what property it can acquire.

In May, voters in the district endorsed selling bonds, including $46 million for the new middle school. Projections ahead of the bond showed the district needing the new school for 2017-18, then another new middle school by 2021-22. The bond included $119 million for a new high school by 2019-20.

Hathaway said the new middle school is a more pressing concern. The design for the high school is not so far along. Based on the site already owned by the district for the new high school, he said the district would likely consider a multi-story school.

This story was originally published July 2, 2015 at 12:52 PM with the headline "New Fort Mill middle school to rise 3 stories."