Marietta High School was supposed to include a performance auditorium when the $57 million complex was built 10 years ago, but plans were scuttled amid cost overruns.
Now, Marietta City Schools is considering an $8.6 million project to add the auditorium that never was, as well as an expanded band room.
It would be a major new building project during tight budget times for most school systems, a fact board members acknowledge.
“Yes, the school needs this,” board member Jill Mutimer said after a public hearing last week. “But we have to acknowledge the present economy. We aren’t giving teachers raises and we may have to raise taxes to build this auditorium.”
The board plans another hearing in the fall before deciding whether to move ahead with plans for the 900-seat performing arts center and band room. No specific funding source has been proposed yet.
School officials say the addition would not only provide performance space at the nearly 2,000-student high school, but also free existing space for use by arts groups. The current band room, for instance, would be converted to a studio for dance students, who now share space with the wrestling team.
About 80 supporters turned out at the school for last week's public hearing. More than a dozen speakers, mostly band parents, students and graduates, backed the plans. No one spoke in opposition.
Steve McCune, vice president of an architectural and engineering firm based in Austell, showed the group tentative plans that include a theater, storage and dressing rooms, offices and construction area for building sets.
McCune’s firm built a $8.03 million theater with 955 seats at Carrollton High School in 2009 and a $5.6 million auditorium with 855 seats at Lamar County Comprehensive High School in 2009. Both have less square footage than the Marietta project, he said.
Cobb County Schools recently awarded a contract for a theater addition at Lassiter High School estimated at $8.3 million with 950 seats. The auditorium is part of a $14.9 million renovation of the school's campus funded by a special purpose local option sales tax, or SPLOST funds.
Irene Berens, chair of the Marietta Schools board, said money for the Marietta High project could come from a SPLOST, though that would probably not go to voters until 2013. Another option is to combine money from the school system's building fund with a bond.
Superintendent Emily Lembeck said the city system has done better financially than other districts during a tough economy, but will have to find an outside funding stream to build an auditorium.
Dan Valentine, whose daughter is a junior at the school, said earlier the community will probably decide the project on dollars and cents.
“No doubt a theater would be a plus,” Valentine said. “I think people will look at it though from an economic view. Is this the time to saddle people with more debt?”
School officials say the need is obvious. With no studio, dance students now practice under school stairwells, in hallways and in the school’s rotunda. Dance teacher Chiazor Nwabude said her 242 students move portable ballet barres and stereo equipment into the wrestling room and tug wrestling mats to the side of the room before each class.
David DuBose, Marietta High’s band director and arts department chair, said the project would also benefit band, drama and chorus groups, which are always juggling to find room to rehearse and perform.
The band has grown 500 percent in the last five years, DuBose said, and more students have signed up for marching band next year than the band room can hold.
“When we practiced this year, the hall was lined with instrument cases because we didn’t have space in the band room,” he said.
The school has a 2,100-seat gymnasium, but Principal Leigh Colburn said it was built for basketball and not performing arts. She said a smaller auditorium would work better for school system administrative meetings, performance space for the high school and other city schools, and community events and meetings.
“We are the only high school in the county without an auditorium,” Colburn said. “We are 10 years overdue for one.”
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