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COUNTY REJECTS CHANGE IN HHS PLAN

Carey O'Cain speaks to Board of Commissioners.

An overflow crowd packed the Historic Courthouse Wednesday as the Henderson County Board of Commissioners opened a meeting that included a discussion of the future of Hendersonville High School. After four hours, people from the Bearcat Nation left disappointed. Commissioners unanimously agreed to stick with the plan to build an entirely new school.

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The audience heard starkly different interpretations of a plan supported by HHS alumni to preserve the historic Stillwell building as classrooms. The plan's creator aggressively defended it while the county's architect and capital projects manager presented a report that suggested it wouldn't work.

Shortly after 1:30 p.m. — four hours after they began the discussion — commissioners laid the matter to rest, presumably for good this time. Bearcats in the future will attend class in a new school, not the historic three-story school building that has churned out graduates since 1926.

Commissioners assured the crowd that they understood the attachment to the historic school building.

"But we're talking about the next 100 years moreso than the last 100 years," Commissioner Michael Edney said. "If you step back and think about it, this gives the most options for everybody in the future."

The original 1926 building will remain, although no one has decided what its function will be after HHS students file out for the last time.

"We have never said from Day 1 that we're going to demolish the Stillwell building," Commissioner Charlie Messer said. "We know that the Stillwell building will be preserved but we don't know why or how. That's not the county commissioners' decision, it's the School Board's."

Carey O’Cain, an HHS alumni, presented — and gamely defended during the four-hour discussion — a proposal he said would save county taxpayers up to $30 million, avoid relocation of classrooms into trailers and add room for enrollment growth.

The son of an architect who knew HHS designer Erle Stillwell, O'Cain, HHS class of '68, started first grade in the original HHS building and holds a degree in architectural construction from Clemson University.

Questioned by Commission Chairman Tommy Thompson about his background and experience, O'Cain said he started out as a project superintendent for a large construction company in Denver, Colo. After five years, he was asked to become an owner. He worked as an estimator and director of preconstruction, working with architects and engineers to plan and direct big jobs.

When he left Denver in 1985 he became one of 36 partners of Brasfield & Gorrie, a general contractor based in Birmingham, Ala. A senior manager, he coordinated projects of more than $100 million until his retirement in 1985. "Their portfolio would just blow your mind — all the work they have done," he told the commissioners.

The crowd of HHS supporters, many wearing Bearcat red, included well-known business owners and civic leaders, parents of recent HHS graduates, teachers and retired teachers, School Board members, schools superintendent Bo Caldwell and other central office administrators.

"I feel as though the Alumni Association is very disappointed with the commissioners' decision," O'Cain said a couple of hours after the meeting adjourned. "It seems as though the decision was already made before the auditorium filled up today. Influential graduates and parents of graduates filled this room and they were equally disappointed."

Putting a new core classroom building on the site of the old Boyd auto dealership "just does not make sense," O'Cain said. "The site is noisy, unsafe and has huge traffic issues. This is one of the busiest intersections in the city."

"The commissioners said they wanted to preserve the Stillwell building and yet they have not funded a single dollar to do that," he added. "The commissioners say they want to protect the safety of the children but mixing adults on a campus with children is not a safe or appropriate mix."

Last spring Board of Commissioners overrode a recommendation by the School Board to renovate HHS and adopted a plan that would build a new school, gym and other facilities while preserving the historic Stillwell core for a future unspecified use.

O'Cain presented quotes from large commercial contractors to support his claim that the plan would cost no more than $46 million, versus $53 million for the option the commissioners adopted. The scope of county's plan does not include Stillwell building renovation, which a contractor has separately estimated at $13 million. On May 2, the Board of Commissioners ordered an upsizing of the gym, adding $10 million. Adding all the costs O'Cain put the county's total commitment at $76 million — $30 million more than his plan.

A new school on the old Boyd dealership property puts students 50 feet from busy Five Points, O'Cain said.

"We're creating noise, pollution, vibration and distraction for these students. What decision makers would subject their children to this?" he asked. "What other school in Henderson County has these impediments?"

"I would hope we would not use as much glass and aluminum," he said, adding that brick would "save a ton of money." (Glass is popular, the county's architect said later, because "people like daylight.")

O'Cain said "honoring the existing classroom building" should have been the highest consideration of the architect and the Board of commissioners. If he had submitted the Clark Nexsen plan, he said, "I would have gotten an F and my professor would have pulled me aside and suggested that I change majors. We want to honor this classroom building."

"Our commissioners and School Board made important decisions provided by the architect of record" ... based on "inadequate and misleading" information. "If everybody knew then what we know now I feel like different decision wold have been made. But it's not too late to allow us to have the wisdom we were talking about earlier."

When O'Cain finished his presentation, Bearcats stood and applauded.

Chad Roberson, the head of Clark Nexsen's Asheville office and designer of the five options the School Board and Board of Commissioners reviewed, then narrated a slide presentation that dissected the O'Cain plan and found it lacking.

All the options the architects drafted preserved the Stillwell building. The option the county adopted includes two gyms plus an auditorium that would hold the entire student body, cafeteria, band room and vocational ed building.

Although O'Cain's option had some validity, Roberson said, "When you start digging into it deeper it starts to fall apart." Roberson's analysis concluded that the O'Cain plan would cost $59.7 million, not $46 million. The O'Cain proposal ends up with a deficit of 32,000 square feet, he said, forcing the need for either temporary classroom space or moving students temporarily to another school.

"Also keep in mind that none of these contractors saw the site," he said of the estimators who projected the cost of the O'Cain plan.

"We've come up with over five different options, with input from the faculty and staff," he said. "This facility will be the front door of Hendersonville. .. We have an opportunity to build something that's great."

Dave Berry, the county's capital projects manager, endorsed Roberson's conclusion, saying that O'Cain's plan was actually similar to Clark Nexsen's option 2, which the School Board recommended.

In rebuttal, O'Cain said Roberson had miscounted his total square footage, and that the actual total was 174,000 square feet.

"Our annual volume was $3 billion a year. What piqued my interest a while back, about a year ago, was I read in the paper we had paid $1.7 million to the architect of record (Clark Nexsen) for the health sciences building." More recently, he said, an official told him the architect's fee had grown to $2.4 million.

"I feel as though we have been taken advantage by our architect of record," he said. "I think Clark Nexsen has a great reputation but they do not have a reputation for being inexpensive. I feel like they're setting up high budgets. I feel like they're giving us inadequate information. Who are you going to listen to? An architect or three of the largest construction companies? Granted, they haven't seen the site but I have."

Commissioners questioned both Roberson and O'Cain about the construction cost and phasing. O'Cain has been suggesting that the county's close relationship with Clark Nexsen is too close and may be contributing to inflated construction costs for capital projects, including the HHS job and a new $13 million emergency services complex. He also said his intervention had saved the county money on quoting costs.

"Initially Vannoy was going to do an estimate and they were going to charge $70,000 for it," he said. O'Cain then invited his old company to visit Hendersonville for an estimate; the company said it would develop a quote for $15,000. "All of a sudden Vannoy's number went down to zero."

Commissioner Grady Hawkins pointed out that a Stillwell building renovation that completely gutted the interior would produce a different space than "the hallowed halls" HHS graduates revere.

Commissioner Charlie Messer questioned O'Cain about the timeline.

"I notice in your proposal, which is a lot like option 2, I can't see this being reasonable for four or five years," he said.

"I put together the schedule based upon my experience," O'Cain responded, "but I've also talked over the schedule with the contractor and said would you be comfortable with this and all of them are. ... We can make option 2, the one that the Board of Education chose, we can make that work."

Edney noted that two well-known HHS graduates who "bleed as red as anybody," Dr. Bill Lampley and former city schools superintendent Charlie Byrd, had recommended to commissioners: "Go get you a 50-acre site somewhere else and do it right."

Questioned by Edney about his bottom line cost, O'Cain stood by his cost projection.

"The $46 million I feel like is still safe," he said, "maybe less than that." A larger gym would add no more than $1.5 million, he said.

Edney also noted that at no time had the Board of Commissioners considered any plan that envisioned demolishing the 1926 brick building.

"Everybody needs to understand, the building's not going anywhere," Edney said.

"But where is the money coming from?" O'Cain asked.

"Our company is the largest hospital builder in the United States," he said. "We know what it costs. We have been had."

For more than two hours, O'Cain explained his proposal, fielded questions and rebutted criticism, insisting over and over that the plan and pricetag gave the commissioners a path that would please most everyone. "This is what the students, this is what the parents, this is what the alumni want," he said.

HHS currently has an enrollment of 822, up from 750 last year. "Next year we're looking at 9-something," principal Bobby Wilkins said. The oldest by far of the four county's high schools and the smallest in enrollment, HHS has a rising junior class of 239, the largest in its history.

Commissioner Bill Lapsley said O'Cain's total cost projection was low on cost escalation — the increase over time because of inflation — and omitted some other expenses. "We have an obligation to compare apples to apples," Lapsley said. "I believe the total cost of the project is closer to the $59 million that the architect has presented."

Lapsley, too, emphasized that the option the commissioners chose preserves the old building.

"I would submit to you that this board is presenting to the School Board in its current condition to use as they see fit," he said. "The fact is the buiding will be there. It's being saved. The auditorium will be there. It is available, will be available. Should the School Board decide to hold some selected classrooms in that building I don't see any reason why they can't do that."

Commissioner Grady Hawkins said the option he and his colleagues committed was best for students.

"It seems to be an overarching issue should have a couple primary considerations," he said. "One is the disruption of training for students. The other really overarching issue we're facing is to look at what we're going to have when it's complete."

The option chosen by commissioners is a more controlled building, he added, a security advantage that will be more important in the future.

In conclusion, O'Cain urged the board to send the question back once more to the School Board.

"Everything becomes very emotional," he said. "I'd almost want to throw it back and let the Board of Education just do an overview and get back to us right after their next meeting. That's where I would like to leave it."

It didn't happen. A half hour later, commissioners ratified their earlier decision.

O'Cain said he's not sure what steps the Alumni Association might take next.

"I want to get away from it for about four days before we meet and talk about it," he said. He told the commissioners, and still believes, that the best option would have been to toss the options back to the School Board. "We elected our School Board to make decisions relative to our schools and our students," he said. "f the Board of Commissioners had followed the Board of Education's opinion we would not be in this mass."