Lebanon County CTC explores options to replace non-ADA compliant hallway

This article was funded by LebTown donors as part of our Civic Impact Reporting Project.

Lebanon County Career and Technology Center authority members received their first look at six proposed construction options on Wednesday during their biannual meeting. 

The authority owns the building and will award financing if the project is approved by a majority vote of Lebanon County’s six public school districts. School boards consist of nine members, so five of nine members of all six county-based public school districts must approve the final proposal for it to happen, according to Chuck Benton, administrative director of the LCCTC.

The school’s joint operating committee must also formally approve one of the six plans at a monthly meeting for the project to move forward. The committee conducts career tech school operations on behalf of the public school districts that send students there.

In February, committee members were provided with curriculum and infrastructure reviews from representatives of Devopar Consulting, which was hired to examine the school’s curriculum and future educational needs as part of a broad feasibility study coinciding with a review of the facility’s infrastructure.

In May, architectural firm Beers + Hoffman presented the six building options, with costs ranging from a low of just under $80 million to a high of $117.3 million.

Benton first walked authority members through the six options, highlighting the new designs and where each new section would be located or expanded. He told the authority members that with all six options, the long, straight, sloping hallway that runs from the front of the building to the rear would be either removed or renovated to meet Americans with Disabilities Act compliance. 

“The one thing we’re known for is our long hallway. But we’re looking at how to get rid of it because it isn’t ADA compliant,” Benton said to the authority members. Benton expounded on that thought with LebTown after the meeting. 

“I am sure that there are students who don’t come here because of this hallway,” Benton said. “I want to provide every student who wants to learn an opportunity to come to the career center to obtain their education.”

Benton told authority members that the building has about 166,000 square feet and can accommodate between 15 to 18 students per classroom. The hope is to expand to allow another 150 students to attend while also adding several new programs or expanding existing ones in high demand.

Welding is one program whose demand exceeds current available space, according to Benton.

One issue that complicates several of the options is that students who attend the career center only do so for two years, and renovations and new construction for several of the options would take 16 to 24 months, meaning students would not receive their full educational experience while renovations were happening, so options A-E would impact student learning. Option F, according to Benton, is a workaround for that dilemma.

“This is a completely new building with all of this entire (current) building being demolished,” he said. “And this is actually a two-story building, right through here is actually two-story with a smaller footprint.”

That proposed building would be to the west of the current structure and would be built towards Technology and Metro drives, two access roadways that lead to the school.

“So this option (F) does not impede any of the educational process because they can build it in what we have over here. And then during the summer, we can move in. The kids will leave the old school, come back to the new school, and then this (current building) will be demolished,” Benton said.

Benton informed authority members that he’s held discussions with two of the six public school district officials and will be conducting the third meeting next week. At those separate meetings, one thing was made clear.

“They all recognize A is probably not their option. If they’re gonna spend the money, they’re gonna make it (better). That option (A) is like window dressing. It’s really not improving, not giving us really what the future will hold for us,” Benton said.

Benton noted options B, C, and D keep about half of the existing space while adding new construction for the other half.

“They’re all right around $90 million, they’re all the same,” said Benton. “Option E is where we go two stories, okay? That goes up because of stairwells and outboarders that you have to put in. So that’s … almost $96 million. The brand new building is around $117 (million).”

Under options A-E, the roof would be replaced in the next five years, according to Benton. Those costs have been configured into the various plans, raising the price by several million dollars for those various plans, he said.

Another potential issue with the current building is the possibility of asbestos, a known carcinogenic substance, being present. Asbestos was put into buildings constructed in the 1900s as a fire retardant. The current career and tech center was built in 1966-68.

“I’m not a betting man, but I would take that wager that there’s asbestos here,” Benton told LebTown after the meeting. “Just the little things that I’ve seen around here, and I know from prior experience, the building that we took down when we built our brand new high school beside a seventh- and eighth-grade building, and that building was built in ’66 and ’67, it had a lot of the same design themes, a lot of the same materials I see, and that was nothing but asbestos in that building. So I’m sure it’s here.”

LebTown asked Benton if there was the possibility of keeping the current nearly 60-year-old building to allow even more students to study at the CTC. That doesn’t appear to be a viable option given the building’s age and pressing needs across much of the infrastructure, he said.

“Our mechanicals, plumbing, heating, electrical, need updated. So if you keep, the mechanical side needs to be updated. That’s a minimum price … of $44 million. That’s just to keep the lights and heating because we’re having so many issues,” Benton said.

When asked by an authority member how long construction might take, Benton projected it would be between 16 and 24 months. He cited a similar project he led in another district and said it was 24 months from groundbreaking until the students walked through the door of the new building.

Benton said he hopes that Beers + Hoffman has finalized plans for the JOC’s September meeting and that a decision is made by this fall. 

Other authority business

In other business, the authority unanimously voted to:

• Approve the minutes of their Dec. 11, 2024 meeting.
• Accept the proposal from Boyer & Ritter LLC to perform the audit for the school year ending June 30 at a cost not to exceed $4,500.

The LCCTC’s JOC meets the third Tuesday of each month at the Lebanon County Career and Technology Center, 833 Metro Drive, Lebanon, at 6:30 p.m. Parking and entrance are on the rear (north) side of the building.