NEWARK, NJ – The new Speedway School on South Orange Ave. in Newark is scheduled to open Feb. 16, but recreation and traffic-safety issues have yet to be resolved.
Steve Morlino, the executive director for design and construction for Newark Public Schools, told School Advisory Board members at their Jan. 19 business meeting that officials are still working on providing more playground space and improving pedestrian access.
Morlino, at the request of Superintendent of Schools Dr. Clifford B. Janey, presented a status update on construction at the new Elliott, Oliver and South Street elementary and West Side High schools, but the discussion focused on Speedway.
Morlino said the he expects the state Department of Community Affairs to issue a permanent Certificate of Occupancy on or by Jan. 29. If the CO is issued, the move can begin on the weekend of Feb. 12-15 and the school will be able to open with grades K-4 on Feb. 16.
The 600-student, pre-kindergarten through eighth grade building on South Orange and Maybaum avenues will replace the four-story Speedway Avenue Elementary School built in 1917. The existing school has 220 Pre-K through fourth graders.
Plans call for a pedestrian overpass above busy South Orange Avenue that would link it to the 30.3 acre Vailsburg Park. But Morlino said the overpass has not yet received approval from the SDA or Essex County, which owns the avenue and park. Without access to the park, there is a limited amount of recreational space.
"We have a tot lot available for Pre K and Kindergarten," said Morlino. "We're now asking the SDA about making a recreational area above the parking lot to the school building's west."
Morlino said discussions with the Newark Housing Authority for a land swap to create additional recreational space for the school have not yielding an agreement.
"It became apparent that such an arrangement wasn't coming soon," Morlino said.
The NHA owns Bradley Court I and II - respectively built in 1942-44 and the 1970s - to the new school's north between Maybaum Avenue and North Munn Street. While the 1970-era Bradley buildings are to stay, officials are contemplating closing and demolishing the larger, four-story original Bradley structures.
The older Bradley buildings are of the same style and vintage as those at Baxter Terrace and Seth Boyden. The first of Baxter's 22 Central Ward buildings have been under demolition since Dec. 1. Some of Boyden's buildings in the South Ward are boarded up.
Regarding pedestrian access safety, Morlino told the board that "We're expecting new street signs to arrive any day and they will be installed."
The new $13 million Speedway School would be the sixth Newark Public School built and financed by the SDA. It would follow the new Park and First Avenue schools of the North Ward, Belmont-Runyon in the South Ward and the Central Ward's Central and Science Park highs.
The new building, which features a separate auditorium and cafeteria plus a dance room, has been anticipated since ground was broken on the former Vailsburg Velodrome site in December 2007. Speedway Elementary's web site lists a 2008-09 school year opening. There was a Jan. 4 target opening date last floated prior to Feb. 16.
When some of the students, parents and staff start making the five-block southwestern trip to their new building, however, they will have to at least cross South Orange Avenue and walk under the Garden State Parkway overpass. Additional traffic to or from Maybaum and Oraton Parkway also heads to East Orange or Irvington and GSP South Entrance 144.
"I'm looking to have myself and four Speedway parents talk with West Ward Councilman Ronald C. Rice either Jan. 20 or 21," said Johnnie Lattner of the One Newark Education Coalition. "Once the meeting with Councilman Rice at City Hall is over, the four parents will go back to school and make their findings."
Lattner has been coordinating discussions with Speedway's Parent-Teacher Organization and School-Parent Liaison and other officials about the new school's proximity to the avenues the last couple of months. One such safety discussion was held at Speedway Jan. 14.
Lattner has been asking city, county and Newark Police officials about signage, adding crossing guards and lengthening traffic signal crossing times.
Lattner and his ONEC members have been asking Newark Public Safety Director Anthony Campos, among other officials, about adding crossing guards at particular crossings by particular schools for the last two years. ONEC's campaig has featured the Ivy Hill and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. elementary schools this school year.
"The new Speedway school should never have been built where it is," said Lattner. "There's a 2005 state law that prohibits new school buildings to be within 250 feet of a highway exit or entrance ramp."
Lattner said that the Pabst Brewery site was one of the preferred new Speedway sites. The now-leveled 11-acre site that make up South Orange Avenue and Grove Street intersection's southern half has been earmarked for mixed residential and shopping plaza use since 2005.
Morlino, when asked on whether the Pabst site was considered, said he did not know.
"Like any new school project, there would be several building sites considered," said Morlino. "I don't know specifically if the brewery lot was one for Speedway."
Morlino referred back to the proposed above parking lot structure when asked whether new Speedway's roof was considered for outdoor activity.
"We wanted the roof early to be used for geothermal or green energy," said Morlino. "We have geothermal heating in New Park, First, Central and Science Park - and can demonstrate the energy savings. The SDA, however, can't get around the greater initial expense."
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