Board reviews FMP 2.3 draft: field houses, fine-arts upgrades and $114M of remaining SAVE funds on the table

The Iowa City Community School District board on May 27 reviewed a draft of Facility Master Plan (FMP) 2.3 that lays out proposed projects through roughly 2030, including high-school fine-arts upgrades, new multipurpose indoor practice facilities (field houses), athletic-field improvements, elementary outdoor-classroom and playground projects, and municipal partnerships on aquatic and ball-field facilities.

Scope and cost: Administration described a projected FMP 2.3 cost of approximately $104,000,000 with a $10,000,000 contingency. Presenters said the district had already spent roughly $156,000,000 on prior FMP work and that between $114,000,000 and $115,000,000 remained from the original 2021 plan to allocate toward future projects.

Funding source and timeline: Officials said SAVE (the district’s local option sales-tax funding stream) is the primary funding source for the plan; the proposed timeline stretches projects across the next five to six years. Project timing is tentative and will be adjusted based on constituent feedback and partner timelines for municipal projects, administrators said.

Highlighted projects and phasing: The draft lists high-school fine-arts additions and upgrades at City High, West High and Liberty High (roughly $5 million listed for some fine-arts items), multipurpose indoor practice facilities for each comprehensive high school (administration estimated roughly $12–13.5 million per field house), athletic-field improvements, elementary outdoor classrooms and playgrounds, and municipal partnerships with Coralville (aquatics) and Iowa City (Mercer Park baseball/softball). The administration said some projects will be developed further before they are brought to the board for design approval and separate votes; projects with an expected cost over $2 million will be pulled out of the appendix process for individual board action.

Board concerns and process notes: Directors raised questions about the timing of municipal partners’ votes (Coralville’s timeline affects the aquatic center schedule), the sequencing and cost-control methods for three field houses, the potential operational costs of new facilities, neighborhood impacts for on-campus projects and community engagement plans. Administration said they would continue building-level engagement for fine-arts plans and noted athletics projects are further along in design. Deputy Superintendent Ramey and facilities staff said they would return with more detailed cost and scheduling analysis and renderings as design work advances.

Next steps and approvals: Administration asked the board to consider approving the FMP 2.3 draft at the June 10 board meeting so the district could begin design and sequencing steps. Officials described the June vote as the first step in a multi-stage approval process that will include design approvals, bid approvals and, for projects over $2 million, separate agenda items and public hearings as required by district policy.

Clarifying details from the meeting: The district said it had estimated project-level costs by consulting outside estimators and architects, built a contingency into the overall plan, and sought to balance work across the district’s feeder patterns and fiscal years to avoid a single-year spending spike. Staff said life-cycle maintenance and other operational costs will increase with additional facilities and would be part of ongoing budgeting analysis.