SPUSD Board looks at alternatives
for new girl’s locker room

The Governing Board of the Santa Paula Unified School District has received a report on options for updating the girl’s locker room.

The current locker room, in the old Bryden Gym, is inadequate and in disrepair. Robert Hensley of WLC Architects came to the board meeting last week and gave them five options to correcting the situation.

The first option would be to modernize the existing girl’s locker room and converting the south wing. This would increase the size to 3,100 square feet at an estimated cost of $930,000. One negative point is the accessibility issue. The gym has multiple levels and is not easily accessible to the handicapped.

The proposed second option is to reconfigure the entire gym interior and construct a new interior. This would allow for a 6,000 square foot locker room with a coach’s office, team rooms and restrooms. The price tag is put at $4 million dollars.

The third option calls for demolishing the existing pool building and constructing a new girl’s locker room with approximately 3,200 square feet. The cost would be $1.28 million dollars. One negative point is that the locker room would be in a separate building from the gym.

Option four would convert the existing weight room in the McMahan Gym and modernizing the existing locker room in the Bryden Gym. The tab for this idea is put at just over $1 million dollars. This would require relocating the weight room to an undetermined location.

The proposed option five suggests constructing a girl’s locker room on the south side of the McMahan Gym. The bill for this is $1.28 million dollars. This would eliminate the only accessible parking spaces outside of the McMahan Gym.