Designer Picked for Wood Ranch School

Opting for an airy, Spanish-style design for a long-awaited campus, Simi Valley trustees have unanimously selected the Pasadena-based architecture firm of Neptune, Thomas, Davis to design the Wood Ranch elementary school.

For $350,000, the firm will revamp a school blueprint, used in Mission Viejo and elsewhere, to meet the needs of Simi Valley, which has planned a school in the Wood Ranch area for more than a decade.

Because the design has already been drafted, the cost of constructing the 600-plus student school should run about $4.7 million, school district officials said. A previous construction estimate for a 400-student school was about $6.2 million.

Construction on the new school, which would ease crowding at Madera Elementary, could begin this spring, interim Supt. Robert Purvis said at the Tuesday meeting. The school is scheduled to open in September 1998.

Trustees selected the design after visiting several Southland schools.

At their last meeting, trustees oohed and aahed over the elegant design, which includes trellis-covered walkways, a gurgling fountain and a bell tower.

“This is the school we fell in love with but didn’t think we could actually afford,” said outgoing board President Judy Barry during the November meeting. “It actually came in at the lowest cost.”