Tuesday’s groundbreaking for the new state-of-the-art  George Washington Carver Center for Arts & Technology in Towson was viewed by school officials as a rebirth of the school’s educational mission — and a particular bragging point for future seniors.

“We’re just so thrilled,” said Carver principal Karen Steele, who noted that students who will be seniors when the school is finished are especially excited.

“They’re making sure everybody knows they will be the first class to graduate from the new school,” said Steel.

There were many hands on the shovels at the Sept. 15 ceremony. Steele was there. So was Sherry Henricks, president of the Carver Center Foundation, as well as Baltimore County Public Schools Superintendent Joe Hairston, County Executive Jim Smith and even Gov. Martin O’Malley.

Carver students will be able to keep track of the construction process that will produce their new 227,971-square-foot, $58.7 million home because it will be built just a stone’s throw away on the northeast side of the magnet high school’s property between York Road and Kenilworth Drive.

“It will be fantastic for the carpentry students,” Steele said. “They’re going to be able to see it happen, and learn from it while they’re taking classes.”
 
Carver offers students immersion in one or more of 10 specialty areas or “primes.” They include carpentry, acting, business, cosmetology, culinary arts, dance, literary arts, technical theater, vocal music and visual arts.

Construction on the new building, which will have the capacity to house 1,027 students, is scheduled to begin in February and end by March 2012.

There will be no interruption of classes during construction, and the student body should be able to move into its new facility during spring break 2012.

Since Carver opened 16 years ago in what had been a vo-tech school, it has been a success story despite the limitations of an 80-year-old building.

The school offers highly regarded theater and dance programs, though has no auditorium, and it also highly-praised art programs, though it has no gallery.

The limitations of the existing structure led school system officials in March to abandon a plan for a $46 million renovation and opt for replacement.

Designed by Grimm & Parker Architects, the new “green” three-story building will maximize interaction between the prime programs and academic programs.

The design will feature a main circulation path and a dramatic central space where the displays and activities representing all school programs will be seen by students and visitors.

The central space will be bordered by a 1,000-seat Black Box Theatre, gallery space and the school’s culinary arts program and café.

Demolition of the existing school will begin in April 2012, and by November of that year it will be replaced by athletic fields.

Carver will  have to live up to its own reputation after the move. The National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts has cited Carver  for having one of the top five visual arts programs in the country, and in 2005, the  College Board named Carver Center’s Advanced Placement Studio Art course as the strongest in the nation for a school of its size.

The school also has been recognized by Newsweek magazine as being in the top 5 percent of the nation’s schools for the last five years.
 
Its graduates attend American, Yale, Princeton, Harvard, MIT, Juilliard and NYU, as well as the Culinary Institute of America and Johnson & Wales University, which is known for culinary programs.

It’s amazing how much students have accomplished despite the inadequacies and disrepair of the existing building, Henricks said.

“It’s this little tiny school that is able to showcase all these awards,” said Henricks. “Just imagine how a state-of-the-art building will enable the students to spread their wings, to grow and showcase their talents”

This story has been updated.

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user comments (1)

user aaronmicah says...

As a proud gradutate from the "original" Carver Center For the Arts and Technology, I would just like to say that there are many of us who have attended and currently attend the highly acredited university of Savannah College of Art and Design. Despite what the disilusionments that some current teachers at Geroge Washington Carver Center For the Arts and Technology may feel.

Posted 3:31 PM, 12.06.09

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