Renovations, security upgrades in store for elementary school turned emergency shelter

For the first time in over 100 years, Park Elementary School is not welcoming students and teachers back for another school year. Instead, the recently shuttered elementary in the heart of Midtown is set to reopen around Thanksgiving as an emergency winter shelter.

The Wichita City Council on Tuesday finalized its $1 purchase of Park Elementary from the school board and authorized more than $2 million in renovations at 1025 N. Main, including a new fire suppression system, an access control system for all interior and exterior doors and an 8-foot privacy wall along the entire north property line blocking access to the surrounding residential neighborhood.

The 720-foot wall will close access from Water Street, but the city is paying to build a separate access road to the rear of the building that will run parallel to the north property line. A screening fence will also be erected along 520 feet of the west property line abutting the walking trail.

Upgrades will also include a new water line to support the fire suppression system; new indoor lights to accommodate 20,000 square feet of sleeping space; and additional furniture, fixtures and equipment, “including security screening equipment,” a staff report states.

Renovations will be handled by design firm PETRA, which was selected through a request for proposal to partner with the city on its homeless services campus project. The council approved $2,252,250 in American Rescue Plan Act funding Tuesday, including $2,174,906 for PETRA and $77,344 for “pre-development expenses incurred by the City.”

The city plans to publish in the next 10 days a request for proposal seeking a daily operations manager for the emergency shelter, housing director Sally Stang said. The emergency shelter will remain open between late November and the end of March, and will eventually be converted into year-round congregate and non-congregate shelters.

It’s the first of three projects the city plans to complete at the Park Elementary property, the others being a navigational center connecting people with resources and on-site transitional housing units.

A complete list of wrap-around resources that will be housed at the facility has not been finalized, but according to a staff presentation from this summer, it could include an activity center, aging/disability services, bed bug treatment, clothing closet, computer lab, driver’s license/ID services, domestic violence/trafficking support, food pantry, meal provider (3 meals a day), hair cuts, housing providers, laundry, animal kennels, law enforcement/Homeless Outreach Team, legal services, mail room, medical/EMS services, mental health, quarantine room, showers, SNAP/DCF, SOAR (a program for connecting qualifying homeless residents with benefits), storage, substance abuse services, United Way, veteran services, veterinarian and workforce services.

“Not only will it be a place to help people escape from the emergency and trauma of homelessness, but we need to equip them so they can emerge and have it not just be a parking place of human beings but an equipping place of human beings,” said David Hodge, CEO of Union Rescue Mission, a Christian organization that provides services for homeless men and plans to establish an intake office at the city-owned facility. “We’d like to be a part of that.”

City Manager Robert Layton has said he expects annual operations of the campus, which the city is calling its Multi-Agency Center, to cost around $2 million. The city has yet to put forward a sustainable funding model, but Layton said discussions with homeless service providers and other private and nonprofit partners are ongoing.

Council member Becky Tuttle commended Stang, who put forward the initial vision for the MAC, and her colleagues on the council for working together to keep the project on track through adversity .

“We’ve almost become dangerously close to accepting the homeless situation as a problem we can’t solve, and I think this really just emphasizes that we can,” Tuttle said.