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A 335,000-square-foot redevelopment of Jefferson High School‘s buildings and campus in the Piedmont Conservation District is in the works.

The Portland Historic Landmarks Commission got its third look Monday on a proposal for alterations for the school at 5210 N. Kerby Ave.

The school is an approximately 13.56-acre site. The proposal includes the retention of the 1909 portion of the existing building and redevelopment of the remaining site.

鈥淭he proposal is essentially complete demolition and alteration of a number of the amenities on the site, including a number of the sports fields and parking and buildings, plazas and so on,鈥� said Art Graves, a BDS staffer.

The existing track and field are to remain at their current location.

The project team includes Portland Public Schools, LEVER Architecture, Bora Architecture & Interiors, PLACE, and Colloqate Design of New Orleans.

Monday’s meeting was the project’s final design advice hearing meant to provide the project team with guidance. The first design advice hearing was held in November 2022, with a second hearing held in May.

The proposed restoration of the 1909 building has been scaled back from what was shown in previous design advice hearings due to project pricing issues and damaged historic materials that are not reparable, a commission memo states. The new building has been reduced to two stories and is shrunk on the south side, giving more space to athletic fields. The new building will relate to the 1909 building through material use with red brick, associated datums, window groupings and additional building symmetry.

Previously, the project was proposing a phased construction. The design has been reduced to be completed in one phase. Tennis courts have been added to the site, taking the place of some surface parking. A berm in front of the 1909 building will be removed to create a new public plaza.

Priorities for the 1909 renovation include seismic upgrades; replacing windows; repairing brick and mortar; repairing the roof; removing berms around the site; removing stairs on the north, east and west entries; establishing the main entry at the front entrance; and recreating a central hipped roof. Options for renovation include refurbishment only, adding a central hipped roof or adding a central hipped roof and articulation, depending on the budget.

The project team is proposing to demolish the 1928 gym, which sits in the middle of the school, as it conflicts with the new theater and gymnasium. The floor levels of the building do not match with the planned theater or new gymnasium, creating accessibility issues.

鈥淚t also needs to be seismically upgraded,鈥� said Chandra Robinson, principal at LEVER Architecture, adding that it would be a big cost.

The new building will include the theater and gymnasium. The updated design includes more glazing with window groupings that relate better to the 1909 building, the addition of canopies and material changes at the entries with brick and metal panels, and activating the streetscape with landscape.

The east and west ground-level frontages of the new building include additional pedestrian treatments when compared to previous DAR schemes: landscaping, clear glazing and extended canopies. However, due to interior programming, large blank walls at the street level persist. Commissioners agreed that the ground level could use more fine tuning. Moreland suggested adding some greenery or artwork, such as a mural. Commission Chair Andrew Smith asked about other ways to create transparency on the ground floor other than more windows, such as a bay with a storefront advertising the shows happenings in the theater. The design team said they are looking into this.

鈥淜eep pursuing those other ways to break up a little bit of the monotony of the fa莽ades,鈥� Smith said. 鈥淲ith that said, I think the current design direction of the addition, I find it to be incredibly compatible with the 1909 building.鈥�

Modifications and adjustments include exceeding the height requirement of 75 feet to 82 feet for the 1909 building, exceeding the minimum setback requirement of a 1-foot setback for each 2 feet of building height across from the adjacent residential on the North Kerby and North Commercial frontages (changing from 23 feet to 29 feet, 8 inches on North Kerby Avenue and from 28 feet to 32 feet on North Commercial Avenue), to raise the fence height from 8 feet to 10 feet for the athletic fields, an adjustment to reduce bike stalls from 355 to 200, and a superblock modification to provide the required plaza area but exceed the 3-to-1 ratio for the plaza area to allow connectivity from North Kerby Avenue to North Commercial Avenue.

The Portland Bureau of Development Services values the project at $21 million.

The team plans to submit a Type II Historic Resource Review application in January.