ANALYSIS|
“Seems like you are looking for a unicorn.”
In a September press conference about Springfield Public Schools backing away from a piece of land on East Pythian Street for a new Pipkin Middle School, Springfield Business Journal reporter Karen Craigo made that comparison. In describing the challenges of finding another suitable site within Pipkin’s sending zone, the question drew laughter.
“Welcome to our world,” said Superintendent Grenita Lathan, laughing. “Thank you for noting that in your articles.”
Emails between officials with the school district, City of Springfield and Springfield-Greene County Park Board — obtained by the Hauxeda as part of a Missouri Sunshine Law records request — reveal exactly how difficult that search is.
As part of Proposition S, a $220 million bond issue passed by voters in April, the school district seeks to build a modern middle school to replace the aging Pipkin Middle School, built more than a century ago. The plan is to build a state-of-the-art classroom building and athletic center similar to the new Jarrett Middle School.
Doing that requires 9 or 10 acres of land that can accommodate buildings, parking lots and separate dropoff lanes for school buses and parents in minivans, SUVs and sedans.
The emails reveal a search filled with highs and lows, from the thrill of finding options full of potential, to the disappointment of discovering those sites won’t work.
The most well-known of those sites was a 20.9-acre site at 3207 E. Pythian St. But because of concerns about traffic flow, railroad tracks limiting emergency access and industrial neighbors, the school district has decided against building there.
That means it is once again in the hunt for a piece of property that could handle another Jarrett. And the search hasn’t gotten any easier.
A look around town
In the ensuing protests over Pipkin, members of the public opposed to the Pythian site floated other possibilities. A small handful of people in casual conversation even asked whether the staff at SPS had even bothered to look around town.
It did. Exhaustively. The results of our Sunshine Law request reveal significant efforts to find an affordable, optimal location for the middle school.
Rejection of Nichols Park plan for new Pipkin sent school officials scrambling to choose ill-fated site, emails show
Springfield school leaders hoped to put a new Pipkin Middle School at Nichols Park, but when that plan went awry, they were forced to scramble and settled quickly on an ill-fated site along Highway 65.
While Jan. 1 was the earliest date for our records request, the district had been searching across Pipkin’s sending zone for months in 2022. A 35-member ad hoc committee helped the district with the search, in order to help prepare the Proposition S issue.
With that in mind, we have assembled a list of some of the common locations floated as ideas by members of the public. Using a combination of Pipkin’s boundary map, Google Maps, the Greene County Property Information map search and the results of our request, we will detail some of the challenges that district officials encountered with the site.
DISCLAIMER: We make no claims about future intents of any property owners. Real estate discussions are ongoing. Springfield Public Schools is still searching, and records show that the City of Springfield is assisting with the search. Our intent with this report is to demonstrate exactly how challenging the search for a place for Pipkin Middle School is.
When a site is eventually found, maybe a mascot change is in order: Pipkin Unicorns has a nice ring to it.
Current Pipkin Middle School, 1215 N. Boonville Ave.
Rebuilding a modern school on top of the current Pipkin property is something some opponents of the Pythian plan suggested. The rebuild would help keep property values of nearby residential areas stable, they argue, and it’s land Springfield Public Schools already owns.
Challenge: Not enough space. That site is only 3.07 acres, and completely landlocked. The largest neighbors are Central Assembly of God to the north and the Greene County government, across Boonville Avenue to the east. Both sites have large buildings on those properties. Additionally, about 2 acres of parking lots are nearby, but on the wrong side of the street.
District officials investigated this possibility earlier this year, but found that even after almost $4 million in demolition and property acquisition, only about 7 acres would be realized — not enough to build anything like Jarrett.
Assemblies of God headquarters, 1445 N. Boonville Ave.
First off, a quick clarification: The property directly north of Pipkin, at 1301 N. Boonville Ave., is Central Assembly of God, a separate church unattached to the Assemblies of God campus.
That being said, the campus at Boonville and Division — just two blocks to the north of the current Pipkin — offered promise in March. According to email records, Tim Rosenbury, director of Quality of Place Initiatives for the City of Springfield, said the denomination was in the midst of studying several properties to determine whether they may be surplus. A former school board president, he noted that a four-story warehouse looked prime for renovation into a school.
Challenge: The campus is fully occupied. The email records don’t include any cost estimates for property acquisition, but clearing enough land for Pipkin could require the demolition of three or four buildings around Division and Campbell.
Central High School, 423 E. Central St.
Central High School by itself is about 6.2 acres, but it is bordered by Springfield’s City Utilities to the west and Drury University to the east. A northward expansion from the existing parking lot would require Springfield Public Schools to buy land from CU and a handful of residential property owners.
Challenge: Not enough space. Going by eye, available parking lots wouldn’t offer many more acres — certainly not the minimum of 9 needed for a Jarrett-like project. That means an athletic center would have to be cut from the plan. Perhaps Central’s Harrison Stadium could also be the home of the Pipkin Pirates, but that feels like Pipkin getting shortchanged from what voters approved.
Nichols Park, 1900 W. Nichols St.
This site was the original plan. School and city officials in January envisioned a partnership that featured public parkland around the school, situated somewhere in the park’s more than 16 acres. When this plan faltered, it led to a frantic search that resulted in the controversial Pythian Street property purchase.
Challenge: Building restrictions from federal grants. The park has received money from the U.S. Land and Water Conservation Fund, and those grants carry some stringent restrictions and qualifications. SPS Deputy Superintendent Travis Shaw also said such projects require public access in a manner that would make any modern school official very uncomfortable. And while it may be possible to ease some of those restrictions, it could take up to three years just to get an “approved” or “denied.”
Grant Beach Park, 1401 N. Grant Ave.
This is another popular city park option named by Pythian-site opponents. While a city website puts the property at 15 acres, Grant Beach appears to offer 7 acres for development of a middle school, with another about 2 acres of subdivided parcels just to the north, directly south of Weaver Elementary.
Challenge: Even more building restrictions from federal grants. Grant Beach is also a Land and Water Conservation Fund recipient, but has many more features than Nichols. The amenities at Grant Beach include a pool, the Railroad Historical Museum and a pavilion built in 1944. Building a Jarrett-like project would require relocation of some or all those amenities.
Cox North parking lot, 1423 N. Jefferson Ave.
To the east of the Cox Medical Center North and Cox College is a large almost 8-acre parking lot, stretching between Jefferson and Benton, between Division and Lynn. It is located three blocks east and two blocks north of the current Pipkin site. Our records request revealed no conversation or discussion of this site as an option — it just leapt out to us in the newsroom as we searched for a unicorn.
Challenge: Future use, and land size. Also, Cox College is a nursing school set to be absorbed by Missouri State University and Ozarks Technical Community College. Combined with SPS, the four partners intend to develop that into a powerhouse for training medical students, and they may need the space. Also, the lot is a smidge on the short side to build something similar to what Jarrett has.
Weller Elementary, 1630 N. Weller Ave.
The elementary school has been renovated in recent history. We have heard a handful of community members casually throw this option on the table. Additionally, it is in a residential neighborhood.
Challenge: Not nearly enough space. It is easy to rule this option out — the school and nearby track offer only about 5 acres. Several residential properties surround the site and offer the potential for a couple more acres, but not enough for a second Jarrett. And that would require, arguably, an unpopular amount of eminent domain.
Soccer fields, about 1200 N. Cedarbrook Ave.
Located only a couple blocks from the controversial Pythian Street site, the City of Springfield owns 12 acres that appear to be a perfect fit for a Jarrett-like project. It would require the same abundance of busing that district officials liked about Pythian, and it is surrounded on its north and south sides by residential neighborhoods. And Central High School’s baseball field is just south of the site.
Challenge: Building height restrictions. School officials ruled out this plot, according to results from our records request, because it neighbored a property used as a runway at Downtown Springfield Airport. A two-story building, about 35 feet tall, could interfere with a plane’s flight path during takeoff or landing.
SPS Transportation Center, 2945 E. Pythian St.
Also located near the controversial Pythian site, this center houses SPS school buses on about 10 acres. Central High School's baseball field is right next door, to the west. The site was floated as a plan in March, after the Nichols Park idea fell through.
Challenge: Excessive cost. Then Deputy Superintendent of Operations John Mulford wrote in a March email that building Pipkin there would require the construction of a new transportation center elsewhere. Cost estimates of that project ranged from up to $4.5 million of a retrofit for an existing facility, to up to $10 million for a new center on vacant land.
