With plans for a new administration building in the works for the Tomball Independent School District, designers are hoping to incorporate a piece of Tomball history.

The district is working on design plans for the new building and was hoping to include a portion of the original Cherry Street School built in 1936. The new administration building is expected to be built on the current site of the Ancillary Services facility that was once the Cherry Street School.

However, with an eye on costs and the feasibility of building around a 74-year-old structure, those plans have been scrapped.

At the April 13 meeting of the Tomball ISD Board of Trustees, Construction Project Manager Gary Hutton explained that the cost of incorporating the front façade of the original 1936 building may not be worth the risk.

“There are no guarantees it will survive construction,” he said.

After meeting with PBK Architects, which are charged with designing the new building, Hutton presented the board with four options, three of which include utilizing either all or portions of the front façade. Saving the entire front of the building would cost an additional $870,000 onto the total project budget, which has yet to be determined.

Utilizing the entire facing, Hutton said, would not only cost more than the other options, but also be time consuming. He explained that as construction continues on the new administration building, the old building walls would continuously need to be tested to assure their structural integrity.

If portions were to collapse or break away, more design work would need to be completed, as well as approval from the City of Tomball, Hutton added.

“The district’s challenge was to attempt to preserve as much of the original building as possible while increasing the overall square footage to accommodate the district for years to come,” the district stated in a press release.

Instead, the district will move forward with a plan to demolish the original building and construct the new administration building with a re-created front façade that will be nearly identical to the original concept.

“Our goal is to save the historical integrity of the building,” Hutton said.

Superintendent John Neubauer added that a portion of the original building’s red bricks could be incorporated into the new building.

Neubauer said he would rather “save the taxpayer’s money” on a new facility rather than “try to save something we don’t know can be saved.”

“We want to make it something Tomball will be proud of, or anybody would be proud of,” he added.

The district is expected to begin construction soon on a new Ancillary Building and Transportation Annex on Quinn Road. Once that facility is open, construction on the new administration building will begin. The facility is expected to be completed in December 2011.

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