Move would create green space, pedestrian area at new middle school
By Mike Ramczyk
Correspondent
When was the last time you drove on Wainwright Avenue, from Perkins Boulevard to Mary Street?
Well, nowadays, most of you probably checked out the construction of the new Karcher Middle School, which recently added what looks like its final foundational piece in what used to be the former parking lot for the current school.
Currently, this section of Wainwright is strictly used for Karcher Middle School staff parking, but during school hours, it’s closed to the public. Students frequently cross the street to use the adjacent athletic fields for gym class and recess.
If Burlington Area School District Superintendent Stephen Plank and the Board of Education have their way, this quarter-mile stretch of Wainwright will be closed permanently and turned into green space.
At the BASD monthly School Board meeting Oct. 12, the board discussed pursuing this further, and officially proposing the closure of the small strip of one city block to the Common Council at a later date.
“It is the front of the new school, and we’ve been closing it off to traffic for 20 years,” Plank said. “We asked the city very generically, like a year ago, ‘Hey, would you even entertain this?’ Then you start looking at things like utilities and pavement. What does that actually cost, and how does it change the layout? It’s taken us eight months to investigate that. We needed to first know we’re willing to do it before we go the city. We want to do it. It’s worth all of the time and money to make contiguous property.”
Some of Wainwright would turn into grass, and some would improve the current pick up and drop off model, which is currently on the Robert Street side of the school.
To read the entire story see the Oct. 22 edition of the Burlington Standard Press.
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