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If you’ve driven by Lakehill Preparatory School lately, you might have noticed the rezoning signs out front. Or maybe you received one of the fliers letting neighbors know about the upcoming meeting in which you can learn more about Lakehill Prep’s plans for a renovation.
Lakehill’s spokesperson Gigi Ekstrom says the school plans to add 15,000 square feet of new space, which explains the need for rezoning signs. The school is zoned in a residential neighborhood, so any change to the footprint has to go through rezoning, Ekstrom explains, “even though we are not expanding past boundaries.”
The school handed out around 300 fliers earlier this month to make nearby neighbors aware of the changes coming down the pike and to let them know about a meeting this Thursday. During the meeting, the traffic and parking study will be presented by Kimley-Horn, as well as pictures and renderings of the renovations by the architects Good Fulton & Farrell.
“A lot of the expansion is to to accommodate the programs that have grown over the years and to get some more usable space,” Ekstrom says, even though the school doesn’t plan to expand the student population beyond 500 students. There are about 415 students now and the school plans to have 425 by the beginning of next year, but the intent of the expansion is primarily to accommodate the students and programs that already exist, Ekstrom says.
“There will be a new art room,” she points out. “We have an art room, but our kids are winning state and art awards, and this will give them a better place to create. A foreign language lab, some performing spaces, and those kinds of things.”
Although there’s no set time for when the construction will begin, Ekstrom says the school hopes it will be underway by this fall. Right now, the school makes a “U” shape, so the expansion will finish that out, leaving a courtyard in the center.
For more information, the meeting will be on April 23 in the Lakehill auditorium at 6:30 p.m.
