Cobb County schools are slated to remove expensive acoustic panels in Wheeler High School’s new performing arts center after the fire marshal determined they would obstruct the sprinkler system.
Parents and others view the changes as a waste of taxpayer money and are concerned the sound quality in the new center will suffer. The recently completed center, part of a nearly $20 million dollar project at the school which also includes a new gym and upgrades to athletic facilities, seats around 750 people.
The county fire marshal’s office gave the school in Marietta a temporary certificate of occupancy in February, which means the center can be used by students and others. But that expires April 15.
“The movable orchestra box (which is made up of acoustic panels) at the new Wheeler Performing Arts center was identified as an obstruction to fire sprinkler coverage during the construction process,” reads a statement from Cobb fire marshal Jay Westbrook.
“After meeting with Cobb school representatives and discussing options to address the sprinkler coverage issue, they made the decision to remove the orchestra box in order to comply with the (code) requirements.”
Cobb schools officials said in a released statement Friday they are removing the acoustical “cloud” panels near the ceiling of the stage to meet fire marshal standards. The changes, they say, should not adversely affect sound quality.
Balfour Beatty Construction, which was awarded the contract for the performing arts center and other project work, declined to comment. A spokesman for the company directed The Atlanta Journal-Constitution to speak with a representative with Cobb schools. The architect for the project was Croft & Associates of Kennesaw.
“In our efforts to receive a certificate of occupancy for the theater, it became clear that the fire marshal had unanticipated but serious concerns regarding student safety (regarding functionality of the stage sprinkler system),” according to the statement. “It was further determined that possible efforts to mitigate the fire marshal’s concerns would be costly and time consuming, and it was uncertain if such efforts would in fact receive approval (from the fire marshal).”
Wenger Corp. produces the acoustical shell, known as the Diva, installed in Wheeler's new center.
Cobb officials said the accoustical panels cost $150,000, which doesn’t include nearly $30,000 for installation. It would be close to $30,000 to remove the panels, according to parents and others directly familiar with the center. They declined to speak publicly because they feared reprisals from the Cobb school district.
Parents and others said the school system was planning to take out the panels while students and teachers were out on spring break, April 4-8, and put them in storage.
Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST) funding was used for the performing arts center, gym and other projects at Wheeler.
Angie Delvin-Brown, who had two children that attended Wheeler, and who also recently served on Cobb's Facilities & Technology Citizens Oversight Committee, which oversees SPLOST projects, is upset the high school is losing the acoustic panels and said the Cobb school system could have kept them but is choosing not to.
“It is a waste of money,” Delvin-Brown said. “You have a building specifically designed for this. Now they’re going to rip it out. It’s not going to be the facility it should have been, that it was designed to be.”
Delvin-Brown said she spoke with acoustics experts, who said the panels could be used with some tweaking to account for the sprinkler system.
Westbrook said Cobb officials were faced with either removing the panels, “or you can get a design professional to look at it and say, ‘Hey maybe we can address it this way and offer some options.’ On their end, I’m guessing they did that and looked at their options.”
Selina Branstetter, deputy director of the Infinite Energy Center in Gwinnett County, said the center also uses the kind acoustical shell system as Wheeler’s center. She said having the cloud panels are “not necessarily required. It does help with the acoustics depending on how the theater is set up.”
Branstetter said the Gwinnett center’s accoustical system has cloud panels, but also additional measures in place for fire safety.
“We have a fire curtain in place in our theater, as well as smoke and ventilation hatches outside of our fly loft, so we have additional steps in place in addition to our sprinkler system for all of those factors,” she said.
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