District to revisit service center design

After nearly five months of citizen complaints regarding the location of the proposed Allen ISD service center, the AISD Board of Trustees is taking a second look at its options for the facility.

At the board's Monday meeting, trustees asked district staff members to re-evaluate the need for a consolidated facility, commission a study on the potential environmental impact of the service center and take another look at the programmatic needs for the facility.

More than 150 residents living near the proposed site at Watters Road and Bossy Boots Drive attended the meeting to hear the board's discussion on the topic, which started after a lengthy executive session regarding land issues, called at the request of board President Gary Stocker.

Trustees, looking at a preliminary concept plan prepared before the May 2009 bond election, went line by line asking for further inquiry into the needs of the facility in anticipation of the coming design phase.

Trustee Jason Shepard kicked things off, asking staff members to take a second look at the need for offices, a break room, patio and café.

Trustee Jayne Grimes then asked to see how compressed natural gas tanks, which have been discussed as an additional fuel source at the service center, could impact the facility's design. She also asked if the district's transition to digital file storage is far along enough to warrant a smaller file storage space in the final design plan.

"Once we get into schematics, those are the kind of items that we bring up," said Mark Tarpley, assistant superintendent of finance. "What has changed in the last three years would definitely be incorporated into any new design that we do."

Grimes' next request -- to see what the feasibility and financial implications would be of "decoupling" the service center's many functions -- was music to the ears of residents who have called for the district to do just that.

But it was Grimes' later suggestion that the district commission a study on the possible environmental impact of the service center that really perked up the ears of nearby residents.

Trustee Benny Bolin was one of many board members in agreement, saying the study should not only look at the facility's effects on air quality but groundwater since the district's buses will be washed at the site.

Shepard said the study should also compare any findings to a model of what the impact would be of other types of development that could potentially end up at the site.

"Regardless of what we expect and regardless of what an expert report tells us, we've got to have some other pieces of information and perspective to anchor that with our decisions, knowing that wherever we put it in the city, it is going to have some type of environmental impact," he said.

Sudeep Gupta, a Quail Run resident and founder of StopTheBarn.org, said he views the meeting as a positive development, though his group still hopes to see the board choose a different location.

"It sounds like the board recognizes that they're not experts in building a bus service center, so they're slowing things down. Residents appreciate that," he said. "Last night they legitimized the concerns we've raised for the past five months."

In a phone conversation with the Allen American the day after the meeting, Tarpley said staff members will commission an architect to explore what the district's prospects are for separating the functions. The environmental study will also be commissioned in the near future, though a study into the impact on property values is not planned, he said.

"This is one of the normal steps of the process," he said. "We are now to the schematic design stage of the facility. However, it's going to take a couple of different forms. Are we going to continue with the consolidated form or are we going to do something else?"

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