Allen ISD Sets $119M Bond Election for Stadium, Auditorium

DALLAS — Trustees of the Allen Independent School District decided to call for a bond election in May.

Voters in the North Texas community overwhelmingly approved a $219 million bond package in November by a 3-to-1 margin. Officials said that authorization should complete its school construction projects.

The district, which is about 25 miles north of Dallas, is nearly 80% built out and enrollment growth has slowed of late after double-digit gains annually for most of the last decade. Allen ISD currently serves nearly 18,000 students.

The $119.4 million referendum on the May ballot includes $59.6 million for a 18,000-seat stadium, $23.3 million for a 1,500-seat auditorium at the district high school, and $36.5 million for a new building to house the maintenance, transportation, and student-nutrition departments.

“Our decision to split the critical projects into two separate elections was based on our need to get several important projects such as new elementary schools moving forward right away,” board president Victoria Sublette said in a statement. “The board wanted to devote extra time to studying the stadium, auditorium, and service center projects so that we could have a clearer vision of the scope and costs of these projects before we seek the approval of the voters.”

Public information officer Tim Carroll said the trustees were “very conservative in the timing of this election.”

“Prior to trying to build a new stadium, the district wanted to make sure all the necessary schools were built first, and we were able to do that with the last election in November,” he said.

In January, the district issued the first tranche of the November authorization with the sale of $61.8 million of school building bonds. Officials plan to issue annual installments over the next five years until the bond package is exhausted.

Carroll said the current football stadium was built in 1976 with a capacity of 7,200 seats.

“We’ve been drawing more than double that the past few years and have half our parents sitting on temporary bleachers we rent at a cost of $225,000 a year,” Carroll said.

Last fall, the Allen Eagles won the Texas 5A Division 1 high school football championship, which was the first ever for the district.

Carroll insisted the football team’s recent success and the trustees’ decision to build a new stadium are merely coincidental.

“To be perfectly honest, the current facility is kind of unpleasant,” he said. “The restrooms are too small, the concessions are a mess, and it’s just time for a new stadium.”

Carroll also said the high school band is one of the largest in the state, if not the country, with about 620 members.

“Once you put the band with all their instruments in the stands, they take up a whole section,” he said. “The reality is we have a lot of parents whose kids play football that either can’t get into the games or have to sit on uncomfortable, temporary bleachers to see their son play football. Still the board and everyone else within the district wanted to make sure all the school building needs were met before even thinking of calling for an election to build a new stadium.”

The stadium is set to open in August 2012, while the auditorium will open in late 2011 with the new building opening in late 2014.

Allen ISD carries underlying ratings of AA from Standard & Poor’s and Aa3 from Moody’s Investors Service. 

 

 

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