Ross Plans A Campus
Had the Ross School known then what it knows now about its future, it may not have chosen to establish itself in cramped quarters in the middle of an industrial park.
But the private school, which is in the midst of a substantial expansion, has no plans to leave its home at East Hampton's Goodfriend Park.
In fact, the school has site plans pending before the East Hampton Town Planning Board that will transform as many as seven of Goodfriend Park's 20 commercial-industrial lots into a spacious new campus, complete with a high school, middle school, and grade school, two parking lots, and pos sibly a gymnasium and playing field.
Adding Grades . . .
The Ross School now takes children from the fifth through ninth grades. When plans are completed, the school will offer a full high school, serving nearly 200 more students, in addition to adding lower grades.
To that end, the school has proposed to merge a lot at the entrance to Goodfriend Park with property right next to it and to build a new 5,000-square-foot building. The new building will mirror the current one, which now houses the school's ninth grade, and will house high school classrooms and a campus center.
The existing parking area in front of the ninth-grade building will be torn up and replaced with a lawn between the buildings, complete with walkways and a reflecting pool boasting a "Winged Victory" statue.
A New Parking Lot . . .
To serve the high school, the school plans a new parking lot on another property across Goodfriend Drive. The Ross School owns or leases seven lots altogether in Goodfriend Park, but not all are contiguous.
For example, an existing office building lies in between the high-school-to-be and the existing middle school, breaking up what would be a contiguous campus; the school owns another two one-acre lots south of the building.
"Unfortunately, we kind of backed into this and we acquired lots as we could," said George Biondo, a Montauk lawyer who is a Ross School board member, and who is representing the school before the Planning Board.
Nonetheless, he said, the school hopes to also add a gymnasium, a playing field, and another parking lot on the remaining property. Plans for these have not yet reached the Planning Board's desk, however.
For the board, the lot-by-lot plans have made for a confusing review. Goodfriend Park is made up of 20 individual lots, meaning construction on each lot requires a separate site plan.
Putting a school in an industrial park also entails logistical problems, such as providing safe crossings and drop-off areas on a road that is busy with commercial traffic.
No Permit
Planning Board members raised a number of safety concerns at their meeting on Dec. 3. They may ask that a bus drop-off loop for the high school be pushed farther off Goodfriend Drive and that buses use a cul-de-sac all the way at the end of the road to turn around.
Before getting into much more detail, the board took Mr. Biondo up on his offer to tour the property and the school itself.
A school is permitted on commercial-industrial property only by special permit. The Ross School has been open since 1993, but never had a special permit allowing it to convert what were medical offices into a school. One of the site plans before the board is seeking to rectify that.