The Kenton County Schools Board of Education approved designs for two major renovation projects on Monday night: one for White’s Tower Elementary in Independence and the other for River Ridge Elementary in Villa Hills.
The projects are at different stages of development. The White’s Tower designs were the final design documents to come before the school board before the project was sent out to bid. Preliminary designs for the project were approved in May, and this week’s approval will serve as the basis for cost estimations and construction bidding.
The River Ridge project, on the other hand, is in its early stages, and the designs were, as district Chief Operations Officer Matt Rigg put it, a “first draft” of the designs. The school board will need to see another round of designs in the future before that project can move forward.
White’s Tower
Current projections estimate the cost for the White’s Tower project at roughly $11 million, although the exact cost won’t be determined until bidding and construction are complete.
“Any potential bidders will actually have the opportunity to meet at the school this week,” Rigg said. “We’re doing a walk-through the building so they can see the space and get an idea of how they may bid the project, which is a phased project that we’re looking to start in January of ’26 with a conclusion of August of 2027.”
Rigg said the primary focus of the project will be updating the building’s HVAC system. The work will require the ceiling to be torn out, meaning those components will need to be replaced and repainted, as well. The affected hallways will also get new floor tiles.
The second major part of the project will focus on a problem called stacking, which refers to cars lining up behind each other when trying to enter the campus. Understandably, bumper-to-bumper car congestion can create a safety hazard. Cars tend to stack on Harris Pike, from which people turn into the school.
“That’s only a two-lane road,” Rigg said, “and people will try to get into the right lane and go into oncoming traffic to get around the cars. So, I know the community will appreciate the fact that we will take our cars off.”
Finally, the construction will build a new canopy over the entrance.
Board President Jesica Jehn asked about the project being phased.
Rigg answered that some of the work could only be done while students weren’t in session. As it relates to the HVAC improvements, Rigg said, “You have your existing system still running while the new system’s being put in so that we can keep comfortable levels of temperature and humidity.”
“Unfortunately, that’s what leads to some of these projects taking longer, but it’s the only way to do it and still maintain quality instruction,” said Superintendent Henry Webb.
You can view and download design documents for the White’s Tower project as presented to the board on Monday below.
River Ridge
Cost estimates for the River Ridge project are currently estimated to be about $4 million, according to documents from the district. Plans for the renovations date back to the end of 2023, but they stalled due to issues with easements near the school and had to be redone.
“We’ve been dealing with this one for, seems like five years, but it’s really only been about 18 months,” Webb said.
Like the White’s Tower project, the stacking of cars, this time on Amsterdam Road, is one of the major problems the project hopes to remedy. Bayer Becker, the engineering firm that produced the designs, proposed a plan that involves constructing a long, looping road around the building, which would then terminate in a new parking lot. The new lot will contain about 90 new spaces.
Rigg said this new road loop and lot would be “based on our estimates and based on car counts we’ve taken by seeing how many cars are actually stacked on Amsterdam, would take all cars off of Amsterdam during dismissal.”
Other parts of the project include fixing some of the area’s drainage issues, expanding the playground, and installing new sidewalks, as well as a connecting walkway from the campus to the nearby Sanctuary Village neighborhood.
There was some discussion among the board members about managing traffic in and out of the school’s existing parking lot during the construction. Rigg and Webb both said the engineers and district staff were considering solutions to the problem.
“There’s things we can do to address that issue,” Webb said.
“We’re all excited to get this one kind of done,” Jehn said.
You can check out an updated plan for River Ridge below. Votes to approve both designs were unanimous.
