CREJ - Building Dialogue - March 2015

Mapleton: Rebirth of an Iconic School in Boulder

Constructed of local sandstone masonryand poised on top of a hill dotted withcentenarian silver maple trees, the Mapleton Early Childhood Center in Boul- der remains a contributing building within the Mapleton Hill Historic District and carries with it vast historic significance. Until its renovation and repurposing, Mapleton was a K-5 neighborhood school.

In 2003, the cost of maintaining the 114-year-old school – combined with declining enrollment – led to the school’s closure. The old beauty sat unoccupied for 10 years, incurring moisture damage, peeling paint and plaster, and an accumulation of insects and bats.

How the historic Mapleton School was preserved and repurposed into a districtwide preschool is a story of perseverance, cooperation and the convergence of many players and multiple issues. For the architects, adding the layers of public process, funding, building consensus and community was a mind-boggling puzzle.

City of Boulder Human Services spearheaded the formation of a diverse group of stakeholders named “The Mapleton Early Childhood Coalition” in 2007. The coalition earmarked money for a feasibility study that would explore converting Mapleton to an early childhood facility. It hired Alan Ford Architects to do the assessment.

After Ford spent two years working with engineers to study the building’s historic preservation and renovation needs, costs and environmental goals, Boulder Valley School District then asked Ford for a schematic design with more detail. The model would be to repurpose Mapleton for ECE.

Serendipitously, in 2010, the district passed a mill levy override that would fund select early childhood education programs at strategic locations across Boulder Valley – and RTA Architects had just completed an assessment that evaluated all existing district elementary schools for ECE programs.

BVSD identified the Mapleton school site as good location to draw its students from all directions – a potential regional ECE center that would serve those kids in the Mapleton neighborhood and pull from the district’s outlying areas. Bussing would have to be part of the plan. RTA was to execute on the idea.

Superintendent Donald Orr and his team engaged both RTA and Ford together because Ford was already two years into the project with the original assessments and the schematic; and RTA was around 8 months into the early childhood assessment districtwide. RTA was also in the process of completing the first two ECE additions to elementary schools after the mill levy.

The district then considered a hybrid approach to funding, combining two money streams – the mill levy override for preschool, which could fund initial construction and ongoing operations, and the city of Boulder’s excise fund to supplement construction. This city of Boulder excise tax is set aside with the agreement between BVSD and the city to mutually agree on an educational project to apply it to. Working with the district, the city of Boulder decided to help fund the Mapleton project.

By the time the district determined the money for the project, the community actually had come around to the different kind of use for the school – even though some kids would be bussed in.

Architecture is a profession of perseverance. In this case, it also took the perseverance of the district and the city to get consensus from the public. The district, city and the architects got buy-in from the neighborhood largely through a thoughtful, inclusive design advisory team process. The DAT team included long-time residents with no remaining preschoolers, neighbors with preschoolers, teachers, the Landmarks Board, Parks and Recreation, and the city of Boulder’s planning, historic preservation and traffic departments. By a seemingly miraculous set of events and timing, all the players converged.

The district’s project manager, Steve Schumacher, had to deal with every dayto-day decision during the restoration and repurposing. “We had layer upon layer of paint and plaster that had to be stripped down to the lath and plaster. It was an unbelievably intensive effort. The entire team was 100 percent invested, and it shows in the school we have today. We started with some pretty high aspirations and those were very expensive. RTA did a fantastic job of bringing some very lofty ideas down to the reality of delivering something we could pay for, that fulfilled all of our needs and then some.” Assistant Superintendent Orr added, “Nobody took the easy way out. From the architects to the general contractor, everyone put his or her heart into this project.” Orr thinks the number of people – about 300 – who attended Mapleton’s ribbon cutting was a reflection of this level of care. “The ribbon cutting was attended by past principals and teachers, people in the neighborhood who had attended the school, and three generations of students.

The deep feeling for this school just drew all kinds of people in. If you didn’t love that building, you fell in love with it during the process.” To date, Mapleton Early Childhood Center has received seven awards, including the City of Boulder Landmarks Board 2014 Historic Preservation Award; CEFPI Rocky Mountain Chapter’s 2013 Summit Design Award; Historic Boulder Preservation Action’s 2014 Preservation Award; ABC Colorado’s 2014 EIC – 1st Place Award in the Historical Restoration/Renovation Category; and AIA Denver’s Allied Design Professional Honor Award.

PROJECT TEAM
OWNER: Boulder Valley School District

ARCHITECTS: RTA Architects/Alan Ford Architects

GENERAL CONTRACTOR: Adolfson & Peterson Construction

MECHANICAL: Beaudine Ganze

STRUCTURAL AND CIVIL ENGINEERING CONSULTANT: JVA

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT: Design Concepts

PROJECT DATA

GRADES: Pre-K

TOTAL CAPACITY: 180 students

PROJECT SIZE: New Construction Area 2,500 GSF with 19,500 GSF Renovation

TOTAL CONSTRUCTION COST: $5 million

COST PER SF: $227