This letter from Paideia Headmaster Paul Bianchi went out to the Paideia community yesterday, January 27, 2010. It's an update on the plans to rebuild Mother Goose -- right from the Goose's mouth, so to speak:
January 27, 2010
Dear Parents,
I
think it was John Lennon who gets credit for the line "Life is what
happens when you are busy making plans". When the Mother Goose went up
in flames on October 2, we needed to alter our plans for the near
future and spend time dealing with our new reality. The purpose of this
email is to report the progress we have made in plans for the Mother
Goose building, and what remains to be done. We have been relatively
silent over the past few months hoping that all the pieces would fall
into place so that our new plans would be complete. They are not yet
complete. Consider this an interim report. Here's where we are:
We
have a design for the new Mother Goose building that looks remarkably
like the old Goose, but has significant improvements in space, access,
and environmental greenness. That design is now in front of the Atlanta
Urban Design Commission and we are working with the Commission to
secure its approval. The new Goose will have the same footprint as the
old Goose, but the much-needed improvements will benefit the school for
decades to come. We are anxious to share these plans as soon as the
AUDC approves them. It will be evident what a big difference the
enhanced Goose will make school-wide, not just in the high school. It
was, as they say, a no-brainer for the board of trustees to decide both
to replace the building and do so in a manner consistent with Paideia's
longer term
space needs.
We
are still working intensely with the insurance company to arrive at a
fair cost for the building we lost. Paideia has replacement insurance,
but that is insurance for residential construction with none of the
necessary and desirable features of a new building that will work for
the school. We are hopeful that these negotiations will be completed
soon so that another variable in the financial equation of the overall
cost of this project will be fixed.
The
building committee is working feverishly with architects and our
builder to get a firm price of the new Goose. Our goal is to begin
construction in the late spring or early summer and open the building
seven months or so later.
We will begin the renovation of Python Hall, the last phase of The Campaign for All Ages,
the day after school ends in June. We expect that there will be
economies of scale having two projects going at the same time. The
downstairs of Python will be finished by the start of school; the
second floor, six to eight weeks later.
The
gap between what we will likely get from insurance and the estimated
costs of the enhanced Goose will probably be in the $2 million range.
We will need to raise that money, and begin to do so relatively soon.
We have already approached some of the major foundations in the city.
There is no other choice but to re-build: the school cannot do without
the space; it would be foolishly shortsighted not to take advantage of
this building footprint on a land-locked campus and improve life for
everyone for years to come.
In
the best of all worlds, the Goose would not have burned down, or if it
did, it would have burned down even longer after the completion of the
capital campaign that ended two years ago, or in more settled economic
times. But life happened, so our plans had to change. The timing is not
great, but despite the loss of an iconic building and the inconvenient
pain of the past months and next few months, we will come out of this
in better shape than we were before. A lot of people are working very
hard to hurry this along.
I hope to be able to report much more very soon. That's my plan, and at the moment, this is my life.
As always,
Paul Bianchi
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