Clark Hall
Enrollment at Lincoln has held steady in recent years, but the school has been becoming overcrowded. Further expansion within the current site was not practical. However, an opportunity to purchase land across the intersection of Granville Street, Havens Corners Road, and South Hamilton Road from the high school's current location presented itself in late 2008. Due to the opening of a new Kroger Marketplace store close to the site of an existing Kroger supermarket, the old store closed, opening up a parcel of land. The school board voted unanimously to purchase the site, and began working with Bird Houk Collaborative, a developer and architect based in Gahanna, to develop a mixed-use site, including the new Lincoln High School Learning Center.
The plan was for the former Kroger building to be demolished, and a new building constructed along Granville Street on the south end of the site. The new facility would have a first floor occupied by various retailers, while the second and third floor will be exclusively occupied by Lincoln High School classrooms. The district will lease the retail space to a developer, in hopes of raising extra revenue. The rest of the site will possibly be developed into commercial and residential buildings at a later date. The reconfigured site will have buildings along Granville and South Hamilton streets and parking behind them, rather than the current configuration of parking along the street and the building set back behind the parking lot.
The new learning center opened Autumn 2011 and was named Clark Hall after Gahanna's founder, John Clark. When the building opened, it did not have its own cafeteria. However Wagenbrenner Development Inc. invested 5.9 million dollars to create two one-story buildings adjacent to Clark Hall. Chipotle Mexican Grill, Panera Bread, Rusty Bucket Restaurant, and AT&T Mobile have signed on to occupy the buildings when construction is completed. According to the city of Gahanna, this would create 70 new jobs.
Read more about this topic: Lincoln High School (Gahanna, Ohio)
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