Architects were hired Wednesday for two Cobb County school projects funded by the latest one-cent education sales tax.
The school board authorized:
• a $982,000 contract with CGLS Architects, Inc., of Atlanta for design work on the college and career academy to be built at Osborne High School;
• a $3344,064 contract with CDH Partners, Inc., of Marietta, for work on the South Cobb High School theater.
Both amounts are 5 percent of the construction budget for the projects, to be paid for from the education sales tax, E-SPLOST IV.
Board member Randy Scamihorn noted his personal interest in technology and asked about the design envisioned for the academy. “What are we going to tell the architect? Do we have a model in another state?”
Superintendent Chris Ragsdale said the academy will emphasize science and technology but design particulars haven’t been settled. While the building should last 30 years, “what’s inside it could change yearly,” he said, as demand sprouts for new fields. “We’re looking at things like robotics, for example,” but Cobb is not “looking to duplicate somebody else’s career academy … We don’t have the answers yet, to answer your bottom-line question about the design.”
Although the South Cobb theater project has been called an addition, “This will likely be replacement,” deputy superintendent John Adams told the board, depending on what architects recommend after examining the existing theater.
