Design progressing on Phillips Field House and Fine Arts Center renovations

Phillips Field House Renovations

The Phillips Field House currently serves the wrestling, cheerleading, pom, and physical education programs, including weight rooms for physical education and for athletics. All of the programs are underserved by the existing facility.

Fine Arts Center Renovations

The 2004 Fine Arts Center remains the showpiece of the high school campus. However, it was designed to serve grades 11-12 and will have some changes to help support its current uses for grades 9-12. The FLEX computer lab between the orchestra and visual arts room will be gutted along with an adjoining restroom and part of an office/storage room to form another choir ensemble room. This will help ease the pressure in the existing ensemble room between the choir and band rooms.

A ramp in the band room will provide access to another practice room for use by the band and orchestra programs and a storage area in the old auto shop area of the adjacent Phillips Field House for the instrumental music programs.

The FAC manager's office will be relocated, probably to an existing room off the main lobby.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Many uses for the Phillips Field House over the decades

The Phillips Field House was built in 1939 with funding from Frank Phillips as a manual training facility and gymnasium for students and also the home court for his Phillips 66ers corporate basketball team.

Athletic Weight Room Relocation

The athletic weight room is currently located in the smaller of the auxiliary gyms built in 1968. It will be relocated to a remodeled space within the Bruin Activity Center now under construction.

Pom

The relocation of the athletic weight room will allow the pompon program to move out of the old auto shop area at the southwest corner of the field house to the smaller of the two gyms added in 1968. A former drafting room at the northwest corner of the original field house will be remodeled into a pom locker room with adjoining restroom and side office.

Cheerleading

The cheerleading program currently has to use a bunch of mats in the larger auxiliary gym. It will be relocated to a remodeled dedicated space for cheerleading in the Bruin Activity Center. A cheerleading office and locker room will be on the east side of the Phillips Field House adjoining the larger auxiliary gym.

Physical Education

The physical education program will continue to use the area between the smaller of the auxiliary gyms and the main gym as a weight room. The locker rooms east of there will be renovated into revamped boys and girls locker rooms to better serve the needs of both physical education and visiting teams for events in the main gym of the Phillips Field House. The larger auxiliary gym will have some floor, lighting, and wall treatment improvements.

Wrestling

The wrestling program has long been housed in a former shop at the southeast corner of the Phillips Field House. That area will be expanded westward and the lighting and ventilation in the area will have much-needed upgrades. On the opposite side of the main gym a wrestling locker room will be located just south of the larger auxiliary gym, with an adjoining meeting room suitable for video assessment for that program and others, along with a wrestling office located just across a corridor.

Instrumental Music

The band program already uses basement space below the Phillips Field House for percussion, with a ramp connecting that area with the ensemble room in the 2004 Fine Arts Center. A similar connection on a higher level will be made with a ramp in the 2004 Band Room connecting it with the old auto shop in the Phillips Field House. That area is currently used by pom. The ceiling will be raised and the area reworked to provide another practice room for both the band and orchestra programs. The adjoining classroom to the west will be reworked for storage for the instrumental music classes.

Main Gym

The historic main gym was the primary basketball venue for the Phillips 66ers, College High Wildcats, and Bartlesville Bruins until the Bruin Field House opened in 2006. The architect for the renovations, Dan Keleher, indicated at the December 2016 school board meeting that he plans to include some floor, lighting, and wall treatment upgrades in the main gym. He indicated the lobby area would also receive some upgrades.

Eventually the shops located along the south side of the gym were converted into a wrestling room and a space that once housed the journalism program and a special education classroom and more recently have been used for poms and equipment storage. That area will be remodeled into a larger wrestling room and additional practice room with adjacent storage for the instrumental music programs.

A drafting room at the northwest corner of the facility later became a speech and debate classroom and then was used for storage and a Student Council work area. It will become a locker room for the pom program with an adjoining office and restroom.

The stage area was originally the band room, with various small practice rooms on multiple levels around it. The band room later relocated to Custer Stadium when it was built, and moved again in 2004 to the new Fine Arts Center. In the 1990s the stage was converted into a concession stand and will continue to serve in that capacity.

A large basement room was used for athletic training in the 1990s and most recently was renovated into a room for the band's percussion program, with a ramp connecting it with the adjoining Fine Arts Center.

In 1968 two auxiliary gyms were added, the smaller of which became a weight room for the physical education program and, most recently, a weight room for athletics. It will become a new home for the pom program.

The larger auxiliary gym will have floor, wall, and lighting improvements. A maze of locker rooms between it and the main gym will be renovated into a locker room and meeting room for the wrestling program, cheerleading locker room and office, and boys and girls locker rooms for use by the physical education classes as well as visiting teams using the main gym in the Phillips Field House.