The Lawrence school board on Monday approved hiring an architectural firm to execute planning and development of Choice Centennial Campus.
All board members on Sept. 24 voted in favor of turning the former Centennial Elementary School building into a small, nontraditional high school program. The district anticipates it opening in August 2026.
The board unanimously approved a proposal from ACI Boland Architects Monday as part of its consent agenda — a list of items routinely approved in one motion unless a board member or the superintendent pulls an item for discussion. ACI Boland is a Kansas City, Missouri-based firm the district frequently contracts with.
Services will total $211,200, according to the approved item. The cost does not include construction itself.
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“The firm will provide planning, architectural, interior design, engineering, and cost estimating services to support the renovation of the existing Centennial building,” according to the agenda item. “Their scope includes comprehensive design and construction phase services, encompassing interior and exterior improvements, entry upgrades (potentially including canopy and plaza work), and coordination with the district’s roofing and HVAC consultants for separately packaged improvements, as needed.”
The $211,200 expenditure will be paid from the capital outlay fund, which is made up of proceeds from the sale of district property and equipment as well as taxes. Money in the capital outlay fund is mostly spent on facilities and technology and cannot be used for staff salaries or ongoing expenses.
Centennial, at 2145 Louisiana St., closed to elementary students in May 2003. It housed Lawrence Virtual School at one point in the aftermath. Since then, it’s partly been a practice site with batting cages for the Lawrence High School baseball program as well as other athletics.
Langston Hughes expansion
The board in September also approved a second capital outlay project to add more classrooms and expand other areas at Langston Hughes Elementary School. Larry Englebrick, deputy superintendent, said at that meeting that the district will likely look to hire ACI Boland for that project as well.
Like Centennial Choice Campus, construction on the Langston Hughes project was anticipated to begin in January and to wrap in August 2026.
But Superintendent Jeanice Swift on Monday said the timeline to finish construction at Langston Hughes has since been extended a year.
The project is now set to be complete in summer 2027 to allow time for additional public engagement this fall and winter, she said.
“I specifically want to call out the work to address the traffic patterns in that immediate neighborhood that do require attention as we do some work to make this campus more accessible,” Swift said.
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Maya Hodison (she/her), equity reporter, can be reached at mhodison@lawrencekstimes.com. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
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