After months of preliminary designs and revisions, along with public feedback and speculation, the plans to renovate Colorado Springs’ oldest high school is beginning to take shape that have some excited for the future and others worried about what could be lost.

The architectural firms tasked with designing the renovations for Palmer High School have revealed their master plan to proceed through the latest series of presentations to school district leadership, community members and alumni.

A track and full-size football field, four-story shared-space structures and removing a section of Boulder Street for a connected campus are among the ambitious ideas presented.

The new design is the culmination of previously considered concepts from hired architects and community detailing concerns over everything from athletics and academics to drop-off and pick-up considerations to preserving the rich, storied history of Palmer.

Since the district secured $100 million through a certificate of participation, the three selected architectural firms RTA, Perkins Eastman and NES Landscape Architects held a series of community forums to garner feedback from community members to tweak and adjust their final design.

Of the three possibilities presented, the firms finalized their design around the concept of a unified campus that would remove the portion of East Boulder Street that currently separates the high school’s facilities and adding a full-size football field and track along with other additions to its athletic departments.

Additional renovations include additional academic facilities, a transparent “heart of the school” that will use glass walls and a revitalized Erps Field east of the main campus a full-size baseball diamond, full-size softball diamond, a concession stand and a network of tennis courts.

Among the features to remain intact were the original main entrance facing Acacia Park that’s been in use since 1940 — also known as the “Front Nine” because of its cardinal direction — its courtyard memorial and auditorium. Additions to the iconic structures included a roof deck above the entrance and an adjusted balcony for the auditorium.

“And it really creates more of a 21-century learning environment attached to this 1939 building,” said RTA Architects associate principal Doug Abernethy.

Some members of the Colorado Springs High School-Palmer Alumni Association felt that the new design didn’t preserve enough of the current school. Marjorie Jackson Swearingen, Class of 1957, has been involved with the association since its formation in 1984 and remains concerned that a portion of the school’s — and city’s — history will be lost forever.

“The Pioneers Museum, the city auditorium and Palmer is all that’s left that’s original in Colorado Springs,” she said. “And I’m very concerned that they’re not going to have any historical part of that building left.”

On the other hand, Palmer High School senior and member of the student council’s “Future of Palmer Committee” Emerson Hauber said that there’s a lot of excitement for the renovations among current students and that many of their concerns were addressed early on.

“They (architects) made a point to keep part of the history and culture of Palmer as part of the development plan while also creating a learning space that’s up to date for students,” she said. “So, I do think that they’re keeping the history well while making a modern school.”

Community partnerships

The selling of school property, an early rumor and fear raised by the public, was not discussed in any of the proposals to date.

However, one possibility long speculated was a partnership between the school and the downtown YMCA for shared building space along with shared facilities like swimming pools and gymnasiums.

During the alumni association’s monthly breakfast on Saturday, this proposal was again brought up by Abernathy during his latest presentation. In this scenario, the YMCA would close its current downtown location and occupy the garden-level floor of a new building added to the campus while the main level would serve Palmer’s academic activities and other levels would house shared spaces between the two.

It was suggested that the funds generated by selling the current YMCA property could fund the shared space and its construction, though Abernathy noted that this process is ultimately up to their leadership to determine.

The response to this idea was mixed, with concerns raised about constant public access interfering with students during school time, homeless populations entering the school through the YMCA and general security issues.

The alumni association’s director and incoming treasurer Stephanie Dicenso, Class of 1999, said she that she and other alumni felt they had limited representation in the Palmer steering committee and that many of the ideas suggested by them at meetings were ignored throughout the community engagement process.

“We’ve been excluded out of so much of this process,” she said. “It just seems like they want this bright, shiny school for their investors, and I really don’t think this is for the kids or the parents or the community of Palmer.”

Following the presentation, Future of Palmer committee member and YMCA employee Chloe Kalmanowitz said that she feels much better about the potential partnership following their meetings with the architects.

“Looking at potential background checks, scanning in, having separate entrances and then YMCA members immediately going downstairs while students go upstairs, it just makes a lot of sense to me after really seeing it,” she said.

A similar partnership between Palmer and the YMCA was previously explored in 2023 and also featured conceptual designs illustrated and presented by RTA Architects and Perkins Eastman over multiple meetings with school district and YMCA leadership. D-11 Superintendent Michael Gaal is currently a member of the YMCA of the Pikes Peak Region’s board of directors.

The thinking behind this and other partnerships comes from the likelihood that all of Palmer’s renovations won’t be covered by the $100 million currently on the table and that partnering businesses and groups would have to invest their own capital into the project.

Potential partners with the YMCA and New Life Church — who have rented out school space every Sunday for the past 13 years — were discussed in addition to new partners like the Colorado Springs Conservatory, the Fine Arts Center and Early Childhood Connections for expanded community services.

“And so, we can honor … what we’ve heard from the community in this process and then we can also create a new community asset,” Abernethy said.

New additions

Among the concerns raised in response to this design involved the new track and field which was not included in any of the previous options presented to the community.

Some students and alumni present at the breakfast felt that the athletic additions were unnecessary while others felt that the proposed 200-space parking lot built underneath it wouldn’t be safe with newly licensed student drivers.

“The general consensus I got was mixed feedback,” Hauber said.

When asked about the parking concerns, Abernathy said that the underground parking could be reserved for school staff and faculty along with YMCA members while students used the existing parking lots along and near Cheyenne Avenue.

The primary hurdle the project now faces is removing the section of Boulder Street, which will require approval from the Colorado Springs City Council. If this development were to fall through, the architects will rework their design likely by incorporating previous concepts presented.

Last month, D-11 board President Parth Melpakam qualified to run for City Council’s sixth district and will appear on the April ballot.

D-11 Board of Education will approve a revised document in the coming months and some construction is slated to begin this summer. The first phase of the master plan will involve removing the section of Boulder, renovating the original building, and adding the academic wing to the school as efforts to raise the additional funding needed are ongoing.

The community engagement groups will continue to meet with the Future of Palmer Committee in the months ahead with a series of presentations planned in the coming weeks to showcase the master plan to the school’s current students.

Hauber said that she’s excited about the amount of engagements they’ve received to date and that they’ll continue to receive going forward.

“Each person has their own opinion on the renovation … but I really do think the architects did take everything that makes Palmer ‘Palmer’ into their designs,” she said.