October 13, 2005

Clockwise, from bottom left: students Ursula Brogan, Regina Brecha, Richard Taylor, Maxwell Mullin and Ben Green looking at a model of the Antioch School’s proposed building.

By Lauren Heaton

The Antioch School announced the beginning of the largest capital campaign in the school’s history at a “Breaking the News” pizza party at the school on Sunday evening.

The five-year campaign, known as “Build, Preserve and Sustain,” has a goal of $1 million, the amount the school’s leaders have estimated they need to renovate the school’s building and to establish its first permanent endowment.

About 100 people, including Antioch School students, graduates, parents, faculty and other school supporters, attended Sunday’s party to celebrate the fact that, with help from the Morgan Family Foundation and the Yellow Springs Community Foundation, they have already raised 25 percent of the total goal, said Caroline Mullin, president of the Antioch School board of directors.

Antioch School students helped by selling Waccarroon toys at last Saturday’s Street Fair to raise funds for the school, Mullin said.

“We’re very fortunate to have such an energetic community of parents and a student body who is interested in the school and its future,” she said.

In the first phase of the Antioch School’s plan, the school will spend $500,000 to turn the 1951 school building into an energy-efficient, sustainable green school, said Steven Conn, a member of the school’s development committee and an Antioch School parent. Ted Donnell, who owns and operates K4 Greene Architecture in Yellow Springs and is also the parent of an Antioch School graduate, is redesigning the building. Conn said the school will break ground on June 2, 2006, and the building will be ready to welcome students back to school that fall.

The second phase involves raising another $500,000 to establish endowment funds “to use as needed to sustain the environment around the school,” Mullin said.

“We’re excited the building will become such a significant space architecturally, environmentally and educationally,” Mullin said. “We anticipate within five years we’ll have the money to establish an endowment for the future of the school’s success.”

A year ago, Antioch College announced its intention to try to sell the eight acres of field to the east of the school, which Antioch School representatives say the students have used as an “outdoor classroom” for 50 years. Last October, the college successfully had the property rezoned to Residence A to accommodate selling the land to residential developers to raise money for the college’s renewal plan.

But since then, Antioch has made no effort to market or sell the property, the university’s vice chancellor, Don Tecklenburg, said on Monday.

The college still has financial needs, but the university has “alternative resources” that reduce the pressure to sell the land immediately, Tecklenburg said.

From the university’s perspective, the property is “not off the radar,” he said, but the college does not currently have a proposal for the land. “Not today,” he said.

“We care about what they’re doing and what their needs are, but we still have a fiduciary responsibility to the college,” he said. “We’re still considering lots of alternatives and possibilities. We have communicated with them and we intend to communicate with them in the future. We won’t do anything without consulting with [the Antioch School.]”

The deed to the land gives the Antioch School the right of first refusal to purchase the eight acres at the same price of a second bidder should the college decide to sell it.

The Antioch School would prefer the land remain free of development so that students can continue to use the space for educational purposes without fear of conflicting uses, Mullin said in a letter to the Village Planning Commission at the time of the rezoning request.

In the same letter, the school also voiced concerns about its main access road, which runs through the college’s property, and the natural stormwater swale on the eight acres, which would have to be maintained to prevent water retention around the school.

Conn said the Antioch School still has the same concerns, but the college has not yet responded with a specific plan.

The Antioch School board has been working with Donnell on renovation plans for three years, and the school community became energized to launch the fundraising efforts when the prospect of losing the surrounding land arose, Mullin said.

Eero Saarinen designed the Antioch School building while he was teaching at Antioch College, before he became famous as the architect of the St. Louis Arch and dormitories at Yale, Conn said. The building is a “major architectural jewel for the region,” and it has aged well with all the original plumbing, heating and electrical systems still intact, he said.

When it became clear that the school’s infrastructure needed to be replaced, a development committee of Mullin, Conn, Karen Wintrow, Todd Leventhal and Matthew Bold decided to use Donnell’s expertise to do an ecologically responsible restoration of the space, Conn said.

Besides replacing old systems with sustainable materials, the plans include replacing all the windows with double-paned glass and sealing off the walls to keep the heat in. The eaves will be reconfigured to allow the use of passive solar energy to help heat the building, he said.

Art and science teacher Brian Brogan said he is excited that the green design will stimulate discussions with students about the importance of energy efficiency, which, he said, fits with the peak oil and smart growth discussions going on in town.

The new design will further enhance the inter-classroom flow of the original building, which serves the school’s philosophy that students learn from interaction with people of all different ages, he said.

“When it’s all done, the building will be completely recognizable, except it will be tight, green, efficient and it will sparkle in a way it hasn’t sparkled since 1951,” Conn said.

Contact: lheaton@ysnews.com