Durham arts school will leave downtown and get $241 million ‘college campus’ design
A new Durham School of the Arts campus was greenlit Thursday night, despite a late push from parents to stop the move away from an aging campus downtown.
The new school, scheduled to open in fall 2026, will cost at least $241 million.
The Durham Public Schools Board of Education approved the design unanimously and enthusiastically. Chair Bettina Umstead said the design was “beautiful,” and board member Millicent Rogers called it a “gateway to the future.”
“Looking at the pictures, it looks like a college campus,” board member Jovonia Lewis said. “Innovative, a place that students want to be, very thoughtful.”
Renovating downtown DSA campus would cost far more
DSA opened in 1995 in one of the oldest school buildings in the Bull City. It’s a magnet school, meaning students must apply through a lottery system. The middle and high school serve about 1,800 students, who can select concentrations like film, visual arts, piano, dance and creative writing.
The school’s current brick campus is on nearly 17 acres on the edge of downtown, sandwiched between North Duke and North Gregson streets with nowhere to grow. A consultant told the Board of Education two years ago the campus was unsafe, had outdated classrooms and tied up traffic at pickup and drop-off times.
Over a decade ago, the school system paid $4.1 million for the 57-acre property on Duke Homestead Road where DSA will move, land records show. The property is about 3.5 miles away, on the north side of Interstate 85.
No plans for the current campus have solidified.
Walt Barron, whose daughter attends DSA, was one of several parents who asked for the move to be reconsidered.
“Being downtown makes DSA truly unique among DPS high schools and is a gift that we should protect. Moving it several miles away will take away perhaps its greatest strength,” Barron said.
But Fred Davis, who directs building services for DPS, said renovating would cost a whopping $372 million and take until 2031.
“This is difficult, and I think the unfortunate reality is we just don’t have near the funding to support the needs of all of our schools,” said board member Jessica Carda-Auten. “We don’t want to patchwork fix what’s going on at DSA.”
A handful of DSA teachers also attended, requesting design changes that administration promised to consider.
Jordan Watson, an art teacher, provided a lengthy list of issues identified by visual arts staff: no public-facing art gallery, no printmaking studio, no easy outside access since the arts classrooms are on the second floor.
“We are advocating for the board to please vote ‘no’ on this plan and first and foremost, reconsider the viability of renovating the current downtown campus,” Watson said.
What’s in the design
There’s a base cost of $241 million, with upgrades pushing the cost to $256 million.
The building was designed around an interior courtyard with a sunken amphitheater.
A third of the classrooms are dedicated to arts programming: a dozen music rooms, a 150-seat theater, 10 naturally lit art studios, a wood shop and two dance studios.
The school has a capacity of 2,295 students, compared to the 1,800 served by the current campus.
The price tag will eat up more than half of the $423.5 million school bond voters passed in 2022.
Depleting bond money: DSA’s move came in well over the $108.7 million estimated when leaders pitched the bond. That means other plans will have to wait.
Opening in fall 2024: Construction is already underway on Murray-Massenburg Elementary in the Hope Valley Farms area.
Next up: The highest priority renovation in the bond is for Glenn Elementary in East Durham. It’s scheduled to finish by fall 2026.
Stalled: The upgrades pitched for more than a dozen other schools will be determined later.
