New Gym at Hart High School Gets Tentative OK : Rebuilding: District settles on plans for a facility similar in size to the structure destroyed in the Northridge earthquake. FEMA will give final approval.

After a long battle between school district and FEMA officials, tentative approval has finally been given for the building of a new gym to replace the one destroyed in the Northridge earthquake at William S. Hart High School.

Hart officials had maintained that because the school population has more than doubled since the old gym was built, a much larger facility was needed to replace it. But the Federal Emergency Management Agency was willing to provide only enough funds to build a gym similar in size to the one destroyed.

The school district spent several months trying, in vain, to get FEMA officials to change their minds.

“The delay we experienced on this project is because we were unwilling to accept what FEMA was unwilling to move from,” said Daniel Hanigan, interim superintendent of the William S. Hart Union High School District.

The new gym, whose design was unanimously approved by the district board last week, is a compromise that squeezes most of the facilities the district wanted into a relatively small building.

Nonetheless, the estimated cost for the new building is $3.8 million, about $1 million more than FEMA is willing to pay. The school district will have to chip in the extra funds.

The facility destroyed in the earthquake included a 12,000-square-foot gym and a 7,000-square-foot attached building that had locker and weight rooms. The facility, constructed when the school was built in the 1940s, was designed to accommodate about 1,000 students.

Principal Laurence Strauss said the school requested FEMA to pay for a 29,000-square-foot replacement building because school enrollment has grown to about 2,200 students.

Hart settled for a 21,000-square-foot gym that reduces space in the weight and locker rooms, but has the three full-size basketball courts originally requested with seating for 1,200.

Detailed plans for the new gym will take about three months to complete, said Tony O’Keefe, an architect hired by the district. Construction could begin by August.

The target date for completion of the project is May, 1996.

FEMA Inspector Richard Davalos said the federal disaster agency will have final approval over the plans before federal funds are given to the project. But Davalos said the general plans appear to “meet the flavor” of what FEMA is willing to pay for.

In the time the school has been without a gym, Hart’s basketball and volleyball teams have been playing their games at nearby Valencia High School. Gym classes were held in a large, synthetic canvas tent.

“It’s just kind of taken a lot away from the atmosphere of the campus since we lost (the gym),” said Bill Beauer, assistant principal in charge of athletics.

He said the men’s basketball team finished third in the league after winning the league title a year ago, which was due at least partially to not having a home court.

“It’s tough to go to some other school and play, and not have locker rooms and a floor you’re used to,” he said.