Grading Geneva Heights Elementary on a Curve: Should DISD Pony Up to Renovate This Historic Campus?

By Norman Alston, FAIA
Special Contributor

The Geneva Heights Elementary school in East Dallas is facing quite a challenge.

In November of 2020, the citizens of Dallas approved a truly remarkable bond program for the Dallas Independent School District. At $3.2 billion, it’s the largest ever undertaken by a school district in Texas and dwarfs previous DISD bond offerings at more than twice their size.

After decades of chasing the deferred maintenance dragon, DISD took a bold step to address the physical needs of modern and effective learning environments. Indeed, this bond only includes 14 new “replacement” schools and focuses very heavily on improvements to their extensive inventory of existing schools.

Of DISD’s 215 existing schools, fully 140 of them are old enough to be considered eligible for historic status.

That makes DISD the steward of the largest collection of eligible historic buildings in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and possibly the largest in Texas. Despite having so many potentially historic buildings and the fact that DISD has done some wonderful work in caring for some of its historic buildings such as Booker T. Washington High School, Woodrow Wilson High School, and Long Middle School, historic preservation has never been given much thought in their overall facilities planning.

In their 2018 Long Range Facilities Master Plan, there is no mention of the number of potentially historic schools nor recognition of the particular needs and opportunities that these schools present. Those previous successful efforts at preservation were primarily the result of the community making it known that the existing building had value for both the learning environment and the community, and they wanted future generations of students to also enjoy that connection.

That is where we are with Geneva Heights Elementary.

This 1931 school building in Old East Dallas, modest by modern standards and architecturally interesting more in its details than in its form, has a large and devoted constituency, some of whom are currently engaged with the school and many who are part of the school’s legacy.

During the planning for DISD’s 2020 Bond Program, Geneva Heights was identified as having one of the highest scores on the District’s Facilities Condition Index. Unlike in school, a high score is bad and reflects a great deal of work to be done to repair and improve the building. In response to this score, Geneva was included in a list of 14 potential “replacement” schools. At the community meetings that accompanied these deliberations, it appeared clear that the community favored preserving important parts of the original building, so replacement of only the newer potions became part of the plans.

Design of the new version of Geneva Heights has begun.

At the public meeting on August 30 where architects’ plans were presented reflecting the preservation of the exterior of the original building, there was a great deal of sentiment expressed by those in attendance that an entirely new school, retaining none of the historic original, was the preferred approach. This was a surprise to many and now casts some doubts about what final direction DISD will take with Geneva Heights.

As the community and DISD work through this issue on Geneva Heights, we are reminded of the remaining 139 or so older and potentially historic schools and that will likely be undergoing a similar process over the next 10 years. With that in mind, it seems helpful to address in more detail some of the considerations that are unique to these schools.

The Facility Condition Index [FCI], mentioned above, is an often-used facility management tool that helps those with a large and diverse collection of buildings and maintenance needs to organize, catalog, and prioritize those needs.
It’s a ratio, or a percentage, that compares the projected cost of all of the upgrades needed to bring an existing building up to the standards of a completely new building of the same size versus the projected cost of that new building.

In the case of Geneva Heights, it is tied for the third-worst score in all of DISD with an FCI of 91. That means that to repair and upgrade that school to the standards of a completely new school is projected to cost 91 percent as much as just building a new school. What is obvious in this calculation, but what needs to be pointed out, is the bottom line.

It’s cheaper to renovate than to replace.

Even in the schools with the greatest maintenance and repair needs. I have heard DISD make a statement about how preservation was cost-prohibitive. That is not the case, as their data shows a 9 percent overall savings to renovate. When you have a school that has been a focal point for a community for decades, and a school district seeking to get the most out of their facilities dollars, this reality should go a long way to answering the renovate-versus-replace question.

Another important consideration that seems oddly overlooked is environmental responsibility. Our quest to be smarter in our use of natural resources and combat the effects of projected climate change gets a great deal of attention and support, especially with residents of East Dallas.

In the architecture and design field, it is now almost universally accepted that preserving and reusing existing structures, where possible, is the most environmentally responsible approach. To quote Karl Elephanté, a former president of the American Institute of Architects, “The greenest building is the one that is already built.” Building construction is a major contributor to climate degradation. To not tear a building down, and to avoid depositing most of it in the local landfill, preserves substantial amounts of embodied carbon.

Additionally, it eliminates the need to expend additional energy and precious natural resources. That is good for the environment. The position that “new is good, old is bad” is now a relic of 20th Century thinking. How contradictory is it for us to teach our children about sound environmental practices while doing so in a new school that ignores those practices?

We love our children and put an enormous amount of time and energy into their educational experience. As a result, their schools are often a critical consideration to every aspect of family life, including where they live. There are many factors to consider when dealing with the questions facing those involved with Geneva Heights. It will be important to us all to understand what they decide.

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Norman Alston, FAIA, founded Norman Alston Architects 30 years ago to allow him to focus his practice on historic preservation, the fulfillment of his architectural passion. Through his restoration designs, education and advocacy, he seeks to integrate historic buildings into the urban fabric while creating a wider culture of preservation that embraces the unique character of the community’s architectural legacy.