Golden Springs to Begin Summer Construction

Summer construction is scheduled to start this month at Golden Spring Pre-K–8 school, preparing the campus for a reconfiguration of the school's parking lot next year.

Principal Alan Pantanini said parking has become more of a challenge since the school added seventh and eighth grades. The reconfiguration will be the largest component of this next two-year construction phase, which is scheduled for completion by the 2012 school year.

See a side-by-side map of what will be changing on campus by the fall of 2012.

Starting this summer, Pantanini said construction projects at the school will include adding a new electronic marquee, addressing drainage problems in front of the school, and regrading a large portion of the school's field bordering El Encino Drive.

The field will be raised and a block retaining wall will be built where a chain-link fence currently separates the school grounds from the adjacent neighborhood.

Regarding parking, Pantanini said the school's expansion brought new seventh and eighth grade staff that began using the additional parking in the school's existing lot, forcing parents to pickup and drop-off their children in the surrounding neighborhood.

"Pickup and drop-off has been a challenge," Pantanini said.

The parking plan includes a new exit and entrance on El Encino Drive and Ballena Drive with the lot bordering a strip of homes on Palomino Drive.

Existing playgrounds near the Palomino homes would shift toward the center of the campus to make way for a new 50-80 space parking lot with a pickup and drop-off lane bordering the north edge of the campus.

The project, funded through a $235 million bond measure passed in 2008, is a portion of around $35 million in new projects underway throughout the Pomona Unified School District this summer.

And construction projects at Golden Springs are part of a larger transition to the new Pre-K–8 format, which Pantanini said will continue through 2014 with upgrades to facilities and classrooms.