Park Forest Middle School opened in 1971.
State College Area School District will acquire a property along Valley Vista Drive in Patton Township adjacent to land where it is planning to build a new Park Forest Middle School.
The school board on Monday unanimously approved purchasing the 7.40-acre parcel from Hawbaker-Brower Limited Partnership for $1.4 million.
Acquiring the vacant lot will enable the SCASD’s design team “to design a project that will better suit the needs of the district, its students, faculty and staff and the community as a whole,” according to the resolution authorizing district administrators to execute the purchase.
The parcel sits parallel to the west side of Valley Vista Drive and “is basically between Valley Vista Drive and our property where we are looking to build” the new middle school, Randy Brown, SCASD finance and operations officer, said. It is also accessible from Little Lion Drive.
Current planning calls for the three-story school to be set back from the road closer to the rear of the 18-acre property already owned by the district. The acquisition of the new parcel will not change that, Brown said.
“We will continue to work with our engineers and architects to find the best use of the property,” he said. “The building will not be moved to the front of the property. [The new property] will be used for access or other uses, but not the building.”
The school board in March selected the district-owned property off of Valley Vista Drive, across from the current campus, as the site for construction of a new building that will replace the 53-year-old Park Forest Middle School. It was one of three options, which also included renovations and expansion of the existing school and construction of a new building on a wooded parcel on School Drive adjacent to the current Park Forest Middle and Elementary sites.
Preliminary cost projections for the new 180,000 to 200,000-square-foot school are pegged at $89 million to $100 million.
A tentative timeline would have construction at the Valley Vista property begin in late 2025 and take about two years to complete.
Future use of the existing Park Forest Middle School building has not yet been determined, and a recommendation may emerge from the ongoing District-wide Facilities Master Plan (DWFMP) process.
