TOPEKA, Kan. (WIBW) -Plans to upgrade the weight room at Silver Lake High School could take a new shape under a revised Project Apex.
A $1.5M bond issue gave Project Apex the funds it needed to get off the ground but initial drawings didn’t yield much excitement from the community.
“The original project called for the weight room, in its current location to be bumped out into the parking lot, which nobody liked,” says Brad Womack, superintendent of USD 372.
The new plan intends to turn the current maintenance building into the new weight room.
“The space we’re standing in now would be in essence, gutted and cleaned up, this would become our weight room,” Womack says, looking around the maintenance building. “It would be a weight room only, no additional amenities for a multipurpose space or community functions.”
While Project Apex is focused on students and athletes at Silver Lake High School, Womack says ideally the project would touch the entire Silver Lake community.
“You look around, whether it’s to the west, Topeka, they have community-wide events that bring people back to the community, it shows community pride, brings people from Topeka out,” observes Womack. “And right now we have basically no facilities to do that.”
The school has a fundraising goal of $5.5M total, including the $1.5M already approved in the bond.
“Maybe in some bigger communities, their focus is solely on what benefits the kids,” Womack says. “We try to look at what benefits our students and the community.
Womack clarifies that if the $5.5M goal is not met, the project will be scaled to accommodate.
Renderings and additional details about the project can be found on the Silver Lake USD 372 Facebook page.
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