Their Plan
25 Spaces, $750,000

On January 31, 2007, three plans were presented by Braun & Steidl Architects for the new Portage Path School of Technology. The first plan kept the Highland Theater intact, while the second two required its demolition and acquisition of the land on which it sits. According to John Wheeler, the Braun & Steidl Architects associate who made the presentation, land acquisition of the possible theater site would add to the cost and need to be footed locally because the Ohio School Facilities Commission won’t fund certain aspects of the project, including land acquisition (source: West Side Leader, 2/8/2007).

The Differences Between Each Plan

The 3 Plans
Click to Enlarge

The last of the three plans is the most different of the three and clearly the most expensive since it requires the purchase of the theater's facade in addition to the demolished theater's footprint. In this plan, the parking is on the south side of the school, making it useless to local businesses after normal school hours. It is difficult to tell from the drawings if there is any square footage difference with this plan, but in any case, the massive additional cost and poor location of the parking make it the most unlikely of the three.

So, when all is said and done, what is the real difference between the first plan and the other two? About 25 parking spaces.

How Much Would You Pay For 25 Parking Spaces?

Obviously, we would be the first to say that the economic and cultural cost of losing the theater for 25 parking spaces is enormous, but we can stick to the numbers and the cost is still appalling.

During this campaign, we were approached by a reliable source that said that Mr. Bare had recently turned down an offer of around $500,000 for the the theater. That makes sense since the number $800,000 had been thrown around a couple times in the past few years. Based on this, we started doing a little addition:

Note that the above numbers are very conservative, especially the asbestos removal, but just for argument's sake, we will round the number down even more to $750,000. At that amount, how much are you paying for each space?

$750,000 ÷ 25 = $30,000 per space

So what is the normal cost of surface parking spaces? $200-$300 per space. By our calculations, the locally footed bill is coming to about 100 times what it should be.

Our Plan
75 Spaces, $750,000

After realizing how much it seems that they are willing to pay for parking on the Highland Theater's footprint, we decided to put together a plan that used the same amount of money to build a single-level parking deck under the school with an entrance and exit off of South Highland Avenue.

Due to the grade of the land between Portage Path and South Highland, both the entrance to the school from Portage Path and the entrance to the parking deck from South Highland would be level and not require ramps.

The Same Money, Triple The Parking

The normal cost of a parking space in a deck is around $10,000. The land on which the school sits can easily accommodate 90 parking spaces, but to keep it within our $750,000 estimation, our schematic calls for only 75 spaces.

So, given the same amount of money, this plan could provide three times the number of parking spaces as the plans that call for the destruction of the theater. Our plan offers a massive amount of parking for the school, while at the same time almost single-handedly solving Highland Square's parking woes... not a single house is destroyed, not a single business is lost, the new school stays on Portage Path and the theater remains as the centerpiece of our community. Everybody wins.