New campus for old school? Durham School of the Arts could be moving.

Durham School of the Arts, located in the Bull City’s oldest high school building, could be moving to a new campus in northern Durham.

DSA opened in 1995 in the former Durham High School, which was built in 1906 on North Duke and Gregson streets near downtown.

Durham County paid Duke University $4.1 million for 58 acres on Duke Homestead Road in 2011. The site is near the Duke Homestead state historic site north of Interstate 85. When it was approved, the site was expected to relieve overcrowding at Riverside and Jordan High schools, The News & Observer previously reported.

If the Durham Public Schools Board of Education decides to move DSA there, a new school campus could be built by August 2025.

“We worked with DPS staff, local architecture and traffic planning firms to decide if the [existing] campus best supports the mission and vision of 21st century School of the Arts on a 90-year-old campus that had already seen 115 years of conversions and changes of use,” said Steve Hess of NEMA, a project management company.

“Since then it’s seen deferred maintenance and has had several challenges with facilities,” he told the school board last month.

DSA’s eight buildings span three city blocks. Currently, 1,835 students from across Durham County are enrolled in grades six through 12.

DSA is also a magnet school, which means students enroll through a lottery system that receives 2,000 applications annually.

Challenges of the building

The current school’s carpool stacking backs up traffic from Gregson Street to West Chapel Hill Street, according to Hess. The N.C. Department of Transportation requires managing carpool stacking on site.

“I waited for three light cycles to confirm that, and there’s multiple layers of informal carpooling where kids are crossing extremely busy streets to get to parents’ parked cars,” Hess said.

The campus also has 68 entry points and 69 staircases and ramps. The multiple building levels and exterior entrances have recently caused safety concerns after a man trespassed into the school and encountered several children in a bathroom.

The school also presents challenges for classroom sizing, natural lighting through windows and storm-water run-off.

“The existing campus does not fit the school’s contemporary needs,” said Hess. “This site has has competing interests between open area for kids and activity, carpooling, storm-water storage and best security practices.”

New DSA Construction Criteria

After Hess and his team considered construction costs, scheduling and risks, they presented four options:

▪ Renovate the existing DSA campus in four phases ($130 million)

▪ Update Old Northern for a “swing” space, while a one-phase renovation takes place on the unoccupied campus ($116 million)

▪ Lease and build out a commercial “swing” space, while a one-phase renovation takes place on the unoccupied campus ($150 million)

▪ Build a new campus at Duke Homestead and remain on the current DSA campus during construction ($120 million)

“Duke Homestead is the optimal solution for scheduling,” Hess said. “It would be the quickest to complete, has the lowest risk of delay of zoning and traffic requirements and highest certainty with no unforeseen conditions that would occur during a renovation.”

The Durham school board has submitted a funding request to the county for the project and is “waiting to hear from the [county] on when [the district] will receive the funding necessary to proceed.”

Closed due to power outage

DSA closed last week due to a power outage. Students have participated in remote learning since Nov. 22, and resumed remote learning on Nov. 29, after the Thanksgiving holiday.

According to a statement released by DPS administration, contractors have received the equipment needed to restore power to the DSA main building.

The installation process will take several hours and require the complete disconnection of power to reconnect portions of campus. Students can expect to return to in-person classes on Dec. 3.

This story was originally published December 1, 2021 at 7:53 AM.