By DENISE R. FREELAND

News Leader Staff Writer

On the construction site of the new Minerva Elementary School, block walls are rising rapidly from the ground. Many exterior and some interior walls are full height, while others are only a few courses high, and others exist only as lines spray-painted on the dirt.

The project is ahead of schedule, said Special Projects Coordinator Stan Shingleton, and on a warm, sunny April day, approximately 50 workers are finishing concrete floors, laying block for interior walls, and setting steel girders that will support the gymnasium roof. Shingleton is able to point out specific rooms - art rooms, preschool and kindergarten rooms, counseling rooms, food-preparation rooms.

Hammond Construction did not foresee having any interior walls under way at this point, Shingleton noted. Jim Hengstenberg, job superintendent, stated that the masonry will be finished by August, weather permitting, and the building will be 80 percent complete by fall 2008.

Thanks to the long-awaited artist's rendering of the completed school, the community is now able to begin to visualize what the completed building will look like.

The exterior of the building will be red, black and beige brick and block, Shingleton said. The first four courses of brick will be black with black mortar and most of the rest of the walls will be red brick with black mortar. Beige brick with beige mortar will accent the corners and tops of many walls.

The outside wall of the gym and the first two-story section of the third- through fifth-grade wing will be beige, split-face block, similar to the block used on the Minerva fire station.

The roof will resemble a standing-seam metal roof, but will actually be a pale gray thermoplastic material, Shingleton said.

The main entrance to the building, which will face Lynnwood Avenue, will feature arches like those over the entries to M.I. Day Elementary.

Shingleton and Superintendent Doug Marrah said, if the sandstone arches from M.I. Day cannot be saved, they will be replicated for the new building. The actual arched entry to M.I. Day will be disassembled, cleaned up and reassembled approximately 40 to 50 feet back from its current location, at the front of the new playground, Shingleton said.

The district originally thought that saving the arches would have to be funded locally; however, it worked with the Ohio School Facilities Commission, Marrah said, and, as long as the school is on or under budget, the commission has agreed to fund the project.

"They understand their (the arches) importance to the community," Marrah said, adding that the trophy case from West Elementary will also be incorporated into the new school.

Some facets of the plans for the new school have been refined as the project progresses. The playground, which was originally thought to be located immediately behind the current entry to M.I. Day, has been given a different shape and moved back 40 to 50 feet, Marrah said. There will be separate kindergarten through second-grade and third- through fifth-grade playgrounds, each with soft- and hard-surface play areas.

The current temporary playground will become a bioretention area, controlling storm-water runoff. It will contain a granular material, which will have grass, shrubs and trees planted over it, according to John Kirkpatrick, project engineer with Hammond Construction.

Another alteration to the original plan involves moving the entry to the car drop-off and pick-up driveway on the north side of the building, from Lynnwood Drive to Bonnieview Avenue. Shingleton said the district believes this will help to eliminate a "bottleneck" at the entrance.

The car driveway will have two lanes, one for stopped cars and one for moving cars, and will connect with the middle-school parking areas, exiting onto Lynn-wood. Buses will enter via the bus drive on the south side of the building or from Line Street, drop students off on the east side of the building, or the side facing the middle school, before exiting onto either Bonnieview or Line Street.

Although the total building is large, elementary principals Mike Daulbaugh and Gary Chaddock say it will be very "kid-friendly."

Kindergarten students arriving by bus will have to walk "about 30 feet" and around a corner to reach their classrooms, Daulbaugh noted.

Preschool through second-grade classrooms will all be located in the east wing of the school, as are the gym and cafeteria, which will have separate primary and intermediate entrances and be divided into primary and intermediate areas. Third- through fifth-grade classrooms will be located in the west wing.

The "wayfinding" interior color scheme will also be important in helping students to know where they are, Daulbaugh said. Each grade level will be associated with a particular color, which will appear as a stripe on the hallway walls and be incorporated into the décor of that grade-level's area.

The principals agreed they will offer many opportunities for students to visit the new building and become comfortable with it before classes begin there in 2009.

To see floor plans for the new building, see http://lion.stark.k12.oh.us/.Click on "Links," then on "Minerva Elementary School Floor Plans."