The City of Decatur’s Linda Harris sends along this announcement from The Decatur Minute…

The community is invited to the groundbreaking of the Beacon Municipal Center on Tuesday, May 7 at 8:30 a.m. (Meet at the Atlanta Avenue construction entrance).

The Beacon Municipal Center will house a new police department building, the renovated Ebster gym and Active Living center and the Central Office for City Schools of Decatur. The $38 million budget also includes a new stormwater management facility under Ebster field.

The project is scheduled to be completed in late spring of 2014.

Demolition already seems to be underway.  Patch has a couple of pics of the teardown of the old Police Department section of the Beacon Hill complex on its site today.

In preparation for the Decatur School Board’s July 10th meeting, Superintendent Phyllis Edwards has provided a good summary of the available options of where to move the City Schools of Decatur’s Central Office in anticipation of reopening Westchester Elementary as an elementary school.  As mentioned at the Decatur City Commission meeting on Monday, the School Board is scheduled to make a final decision on this topic at the July 10th meeting.

So without further ado, here’s the Superintendent’s note to the Board…

For the last year we have discussed increasing enrollment and the need to place the last school building (Westchester) back into the mix as a school. This means that the central office must be relocated.

Discussions have been held with the city leaders in our search for options. There is an opportunity to locate the central office in the current Beacon Hill building. The building would allow the system to have approximately the same amount of space as currently used at Westchester. The building can be designed to meet the system’s needs of parking, board room space, and program management space so central office personnel will not be located in school buildings where there is little space. It will also provide a sense of community and honor to the neighbors and families that cherished this building when it was an operational school. For the sake of history and community, this would be a positive move. It is also a plausible choice because it does not utilize spaces on other campuses that could be utilized for future expansion if needed. The building would be built by the city and when finished the school system would purchase the space. The drawback is the price (last price received: $5.9 million) which exceeds what our initial estimate was for the new central office. However, the city is able to allow the school system to fund the cost over time.

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The Decatur City Commission is scheduled to vote this evening on a $1.3 million contract for preparation of construction documents for the Beacon Hill School complex with Rutledge Alcock Architects.   According to a letter from Deputy City Manager Hugh Saxon, the funds are available from HOST proceeds.

Mr. Saxon estimates that renovation construction will begin in 2013 that will “incorporate a modern headquarters for the Decatur Police Department, new Municipal Court facilities”, a rec center, “a wing that can be programmed for the City Schools Central Office, on-site parking for the Police Department and the other Beacon School facilities uses, and an outdoor plaza and entertainment area.”

The city solicited feedback from the community back in June 2010.

Additionally Mr. Saxon adds that “Consistent with feedback during the master planning process from former residents and family members of former residents of the community, we are also planning to develop an exhibit in the complex that documents the heritage of the Beacon Hill Community, the historical center of African American life in Decatur.”

Mr. Saxon also mentions that CSD should make a final decision on whether to move into Beacon Hill early this month.

From the Decatur Minute…

The City of Decatur has employed Rudledge Alcock Architects and Lord Cultural Resources to complete a master plan for the renovation or redevelopment of the Beacon School complex at 420 W. Trinity Place. This building currently houses the Decatur Police Department, the Ebster Recreation Center, dance and choral performance spaces and artists’ studios.

A public input meeting will be held at 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, July 20, 2010 at Decatur City Hall, 509 N. McDonough Street. The community is invited to come and learn more about the master plan and help plan the project.

Note the choice between “renovation or redevelopment”.

It will be interesting to see how much interest/passion there is among residents for preserving this old school building – one of the few remaining reminders of the old mid-century Beacon Hill neighborhood – which is in pretty rough shape these days.